If you’re wondering what sets Spotify Premium apart from Spotify Free, you’ve come to the right place. Spotify Premium helps get rid of annoying commercials and expands upon the mobile features included in Spotify Free. However, Spotify Free also provides access to all songs, so it may seem wasteful to pay $9.99 a month. If you don’t take advantage of all that Spotify Premium has to offer, it will feel like you’re just paying to get rid of commercials. Keep reading to see more comparisons between Spotify Free vs. Premium Features, Spotify Free vs. Premium Podcast, and Spotify vs. Apple Music.
What Is Spotify?
Spotify is one of the most popular and widely used music streaming services in the world. Countless subscribers praise the service’s extensive music catalog and intuitive design. You can listen to music in a variety of ways within the Spotify universe, each of which provides a distinctive experience.
The user’s unique preferences and needs are largely what determines Spotify’s two main modes of operation. The free service is one option. If you choose this option, you may hear advertising interspersed with your music. The service is totally free, so you can listen to an incredible variety of songs without breaking the bank. If you don’t mind having your audio occasionally cut off, this is a great option for you.
However, there’s also Spotify Premium. This is the premium, subscription-based tier of the service. This alternative stands out due to the lack of advertisements. If you upgrade to the Premium version, you can listen to music without interruption from commercials. Those willing to pay a monthly subscription in exchange for an uninterrupted listening experience will find this to be the best option.
It’s true that the only distinction between Spotify Free and Spotify Premium is whether or not ads are included in playback.
What Do You Get With Spotify Free?
If you’re looking for a free music streaming service that offers the same songs as the subscription service without the annoyance of ads, then the Free version is the service for you.
Spotify’s free tier grants users access to an extensive music library of over 80 million tracks and 2.6 million podcasts. The basic version is free and may be used in a variety of situations; It is compatible with iOS and Android devices, including smartphones from Apple and Google.
Devices like Apple CarPlay and the PlayStation, as well as tablets, desktops, and select Smart TVs, are all included.
Given that commercials are what keep the service running, you may expect to hear them intermittently throughout your music playback. For the privilege of listening to all those songs without paying anything, this is a nominal fee.
One major drawback of the free tier is the lack of advanced playback controls that are available in the subscription tier. As with Spotify’s premium service, you can skip tracks at will. The free service also has a speed cap of 160 kbit/s for listening to music online. It’s clear that Spotify is counting on these perks to get you to upgrade to Premium.
If you don’t mind commercials, Spotify Free is a terrific streaming service that gives you access to a lot of music for free.
The Spotify Premium service provides access to the same 80 million songs and over 2.6 million podcasts as the free service, plus additional features.
The absence of advertisements in the premium service sets it apart from the free version. This version may be preferable if you dislike commercials.
If you upgrade to the Premium version, you’ll get access to an offline playlist that lets you save songs to listen to even when you don’t have internet. Up to ten thousand songs can be saved to a maximum of five devices for offline playback.
In comparison to the free version, the Premium one allows for unlimited skipping and has better sound quality. When you upgrade to the premium version, your bit rate for streaming music increases to 320 kbit/s from 160 kbit/s in the free version.
The Spotify Premium Student plan, the most affordable of Spotify’s paid tiers, is available to students for $4.99 per month. The identical plan, excluding the student price of $9.99 per month, is also offered to normal consumers.
Spotify Duo, the next tier up, is designed for two users to share and costs $12.99 per month total. The Family Plan is the most expensive option at $15.99 per month, but it allows six people to share a single account.
What’s the Point of Spotify Free?
Spotify’s free tier has fewer options, but you may still enjoy the service. Shuffle playback is supported, and you can skip up to six times an hour, every hour, on the free plan. You can’t listen to Spotify Radio, but you can listen to the Daily Mix.
All Spotify playlists are available to free users, as are features like Discover Weekly and Social Playlists.
Playlists, albums, and artists can all be played via Shuffle Play, but only at random.
More than 50 million songs are available in Spotify’s collection, and all of them are accessible to subscribers at no extra cost. It has over 400 million users and is one of the leading music streaming services in the world thanks to its 182 million paying members.
Should you pay to listen to music when services like Spotify’s free, ad-supported version are available? There are six reasons to pay the $10 monthly fee for Spotify Premium, including the removal of ads that disrupt your music streaming experience. Here are reasons why the Premium service is better than the regular service:
#1. There Is No Longer a Shuffle-Only Option
The ability to play any music you choose on demand is the main attraction of the premium version of Spotify’s app for smartphones. Outside of hand-picked playlists like Daily Mixes, shuffle is your only option with the free edition. If you have the Premium version on your phone, you can wind down the night listening to The Weeknd’s “Out of Time” and Drake’s “Fountains” without having to listen to any cheesy power ballads from the Cats soundtrack.
(It’s important to note that when using the desktop or tablet app, Spotify’s free service does not limit you to shuffle-only mode.)
#2. You Can Rewind and Play At Will
When playing a mixed playlist on the free service, you can only skip so many tracks. Specifically, every hour only grants you six skips. As many tracks as you like without paying extra for Premium. Furthermore, mobile users can play a song over and over or go back as many times as they wish.
#3. Better Sound Quality
You can choose between regular (96 kilobits per second) and high quality (160 kilobits per second) when using the Free version, but you cannot change the bitrate. If you utilize high-end headphones or speakers, you may notice an improvement in sound quality using Spotify Premium’s Very high-quality streaming at 320 Kbps. Whether you’re using a desktop, mobile, or tablet to listen, you’ll find this option under Settings > Audio Quality.
However, podcasts with a bitrate of 96 Kbps (the default for all devices save a web player, which is 128 Kbps) would not benefit from this functionality.
How Long Does Spotify Free Last?
For a period of one month. After signing up for Spotify, you’ll immediately be given access to a 30-day free trial of the premium tier of the service. For 30 days, you can listen to whatever you choose without interruption from advertising; if you don’t upgrade to Premium, your account will revert to the free tier.
It’s crucial to know the differences between Spotify Free and Spotify Premium before making the decision to upgrade. You can choose the best Spotify plan for your needs by learning about the features available in both the free and paid versions. Here, we’ll examine the key distinctions between Spotify’s Free and Premium Features.
One of the most obvious distinctions between Spotify Free and Premium is the cost. Spotify Premium costs $9.99 monthly vs. the free Spotify service’s zero-dollar cost. The student plan is only $4.99 per month, the pair plan costs $12.99 per month, and the family plan costs $15.99 per month (for up to six people).
Spotify Free may be the way to go if you can put up with the advertising and aren’t concerned with having all the bells and whistles. Premium’s extra features and perks are nice to have if you can afford them, but you should weigh that against how much money you can save by not upgrading.
If you’re using Spotify Free, know that you’ll be subjected to both audio and visual advertisements. Our tests showed that after skipping a specific number of tracks on the desktop app, advertisements would begin to appear.
Full-screen advertisements appear when you first use the app or when you switch playlists on the mobile app, but they don’t interrupt your listening experience very often.
You’ll have to sit through the entire commercial before moving on to the next song, as it’s not skippable.
The option to “Process my personal data for tailored ads” must be disabled in the settings menu.
On the other hand, Spotify Premium has no ads at all, so you can listen without interruption. Without the ads, you’ll also be able to save some data that would have been used to load the ads. In turn, this will let your gadgets last longer between charges.
Spotify’s free and premium customers are treated equally when it comes to discovering new music.
Both the free and premium versions of Spotify have the same weekly-updated ‘Discover Weekly’ and ‘Release Radar’ playlists to help you find new music. These playlists change with the same frequency and material for both Free and Premium users. No matter which subscription you choose, you’ll also receive a New Music Friday playlist and many Daily Mixes.
You can find ‘Made For You’ playlists organized in several ways, including by artist or by time period. They develop in response to your listening habits, so first-time users will need to put in some time with the service before they appear.
Whether you’re a Free or Premium user, Spotify will provide suggestions for more songs to add to your playlist based on the ones already there.
Only Premium users have access to the ‘Enhance’ playlist feature, which is the only difference in discovery options. If you use this function, after every two songs you listen to, you’ll get a suggestion for a new song to add to your playlist.
The ‘Enhance’ function is a great touch, but chances are you’ll have Spotify minimized in the background while you listen to tunes. You probably won’t be engaging with Spotify very often, even if you stay in its interface.
It’s possible that, in the end, it won’t be that big of a deal if you don’t have it.
In Spotify Free, there is no way to save music for offline playback. Without a WiFi connection, you’ll need to use your mobile data plan to stream music.
Podcasts, on the other hand, can be downloaded and listened to whenever you need a distraction. As long as your device has enough storage space, there is no hard restriction on the number of podcasts you can download.
However, if you want to get songs from Spotify for free, you can test out third-party apps. Nevertheless, some of these apps might violate Spotify’s rules, so be cautious.
If you have Spotify Premium, you can use the mobile app to download music as well as podcasts.
Up to five devices can be used to download a total of ten thousand music or podcast episodes. To preserve your downloaded songs in your library, simply login to Spotify online at least once every 30 days.
There are four tiers of audio quality available to Spotify Free users across all platforms:
- Automatic: Dependent on a network connection
- Low: 24 kbit/s
- Normal: 96 kbit/s
- High: 160 kbit/s
The ‘Very High’ quality option, which streams at 320 kbit/s, is exclusive to Spotify Premium users. Podcasts are available at a constant 96 kbit/s on all platforms and 128 kbit/s on the Spotify web player for both free and premium customers.
There isn’t much of a difference between high and very High’ unless you’re paying close attention to the nuances of the music or listening through high-quality audio equipment.
It’s worth noting that the audio quality of the web player for Spotify Premium is 256 kbit/s, up from 128 kbit/s for Spotify Free.
Spotify’s new ‘HiFi’ option, which will likely cost more than the basic Premium plan, may also offer lossless audio quality to its users.
At their Stream On event in February 2021 and on their official blog, Spotify unveiled the new HiFi feature. Unfortunately, this HiFi feature has not yet been made available; therefore, it cannot be considered a Premium benefit at this time.
Before, only Premium users could use Spotify Connect-enabled speakers to listen to music. By 2018, Spotify had eliminated the system and made the service available to all subscribers. Spotify Connect now allows for fluid playback across multiple platforms and devices for both Free and Premium customers.
A Premium subscription is needed to use the official Spotify accessory, Car Thing, which lets you stream your music from Spotify through your car’s speakers.
However, Premium members have access to a wider variety of devices. For instance, out of the 41 wireless speaker types available to Free users, 100 of them require a Premium membership in order to stream music.
Spotify’s website features a comprehensive list of compatible devices for both free and premium users.
Both the free and premium versions of Spotify have numerous useful social features. The buddy activity stream allows you to see what your friends and others you follow have been listening to and allows you to make shared playlists with them.
Alternatively, you can utilize the Blend function to make a playlist that includes songs chosen by both you and your friends.
Among the differences, only Premium users may access Group Sessions, which allows you to create live listening parties with up to five people (no matter where they are in the world).
If you’re a Premium Duo or Family subscriber, you can pool the music tastes of your household into one playlist. When traveling or hanging out with friends, this function will play music that everyone enjoys.
Spotify vs Apple Music
The two most popular music streaming services are Apple Music and Spotify. They all cost the same to subscribe to each month ($10, £10, or AU$12), making it difficult to choose the best one. Do you need support for lossless and/or spatial audio? The winner is Apple Music. Interested in a high-tech automotive audio system that plays podcasts? So, you listen to music only on Spotify.
The way you listen to the options is also important. Support for smart speakers is essential for listening to music at home, but for serious listeners, other factors, such as the availability of content and the quality of the stream, maybe more significant. New data is added to this comparison on a regular basis. Here is a full comparison between Spotify and Apple Music
#1. Spotify vs Apple Music: Music Discovery and Recommendations
Spotify and Apple Music each provide unique ways to explore new music. Spotify’s six Daily Mix playlists are personalized based on your listening history and your preferences in music by Artist, Genre, Mood, and Decade.
New music from artists you follow or might like is featured on the Release Radar playlist, as well as the Discover Weekly playlist. While Spotify’s home tab is where you’ll get personalized recommendations, the Made for You tab is where you’ll find personalized music.
Spotify also makes it easy to add songs to your custom playlists by making recommendations based on your previous selections.
On the other side, Apple Music’s Listen Now and Browse sections provide user-curated playlists and albums. You can create an infinite number of unique musical combinations with the stations, songs, playlists, and albums available here. Favorites, Get Up!, Chill, and New Music are just some of Apple Music’s curated playlist options.
Both offer excellent personalization algorithms, but Spotify’s suggestion algorithm is widely regarded as the most superior.
#2. Spotify vs. Apple Music: Availability
You can use either service on your choice of iOS, macOS, iPadOS, Android, or Windows devices. The web and other platforms also support streaming. Spotify, on the other hand, has an advantage over Apple Music because of the wider range of devices it supports, including Linux, smart TV operating systems, gaming consoles, smart speakers, and more.
Spotify, an industry pioneer, is available on more devices than Apple Music, which has traditionally been an Apple-only service. In contrast to Apple Music, Spotify provides a uniform streaming experience regardless of device.
#3. Spotify vs. Apple Music: Price
One of the top free music streaming services, Spotify’s limited ad-supported plan is available for immediate signup and use. Standard, Duo, and Family plans cost $9.99, $12.99, and $15.99, respectively, and include Spotify Kids. Hulu and Showtime may be had for only $4.99 a month with a student discount.
However, Apple Music does not offer a free service. The cheapest option is Apple Music Voice, with a monthly cost of $4.99. Standard is next, at $9.99, and Family is at $16.99. Apple also has a discounted $5.99/month student plan.
For the Spotify Family and Duo plans, all members must share the same physical address. In contrast, all family members in an Apple Music family plan need to have the same iTunes region selected.
#4. Spotify vs. Apple Music: Unique Features
Spotify has many unique features, such as the ability to purchase audiobooks, translate song lyrics, watch video podcasts, and make group playlists with friends. Unique live recordings by musicians are also available.
There are some notable additions to Apple Music that are missing from Spotify. There’s Apple Music Sing, for one thing; Top Charts, where you can see the most popular songs in different countries and cities; and SharePlay, for listening to music with other callers during a video or voice conversation.
You may also watch and listen to live performances, as well as music videos (including a 24-hour livestream of popular music videos), mini-documentaries, artist interviews, and more. Last but not least, you may now tap on a line in the lyrics section of Apple Music to immediately jump to that point in the song.
The concept of podcasts is not new. They are very self-explanatory, but let’s go through it anyway:
A podcast is an audio recording that can be downloaded and listened to later on your computer. After MTV’s Adam Curry and software developer Dave Winer created the “iPodder” in 2005, consumers were able to download internet radio programs to their iPods, which had abundant storage space at the time. This marked their first appearance on iTunes.
However, they are no longer unique to iTunes and have instead migrated to other audio streaming services.
In response to the podcast industry’s meteoric rise in popularity around the world, Spotify has made several significant improvements. They’re easy to access and enjoy, and the payouts to the artists are substantial.
Is there a cost to the customer for this, though?
Are Spotify Podcasts Free?
Podcasts are available for free on Spotify for both free and premium users. You will still have to endure ads, host-read endorsements, and sponsorship advertising, even with a premium subscription.
But it’s great that the platform gives creators such a large cut of the cash and that users may watch the enjoyable content without paying a dime.
If you subscribe to Spotify’s premium account, you’ll have access to curated and featured podcasts and episodes that you can download and listen to whenever and wherever you choose.
Any new episodes of your favorite podcasts or television shows will be downloaded and stored automatically. When you’re not on the go, you can catch up on some episodes by watching the accompanying videos.
Winner: Spotify’s premium service. It’s obvious that Spotify Premium has more functionality than Spotify Free, but whether or not you’re prepared to pay for a membership is, of course, up to you. If you qualify for a student, family, or two-person plan, Spotify Premium is affordable; if you’re still on the fence, though, Spotify offers free Premium trials of one month’s duration. The free tier of a streaming service, like the free tiers of other services, is designed to get you to upgrade to a subscription tier with more features. This may entail shuffling albums and playlists or using a lower-quality audio stream. However, Spotify’s free tier is good enough for casual listening, so crank up the tunes and relax.
Bottom Line
In the end, it’s impossible to argue that one strategy is inherently superior to another. Everyone has their own unique way of listening to music. How much time and money we put into this pastime is up to the individual.
However, we hope that this post has shed light on whether or not Premium is worth the cost. And if you’re still not convinced, there’s always the trial version.
Can You Choose Songs on Spotify Free?
Yes. Even with the free desktop version, you can pick songs. Only desktop ads separate Spotify Free from Spotify Premium. Spotify Premium removes advertisements from the desktop version. All of Premium’s features are available in the free version, with the exception of the ad-free experience.
Can I Use Spotify for Free Forever?
Yes. Using Spotify to listen to your music, podcasts, and more is completely free, but a premium subscription is necessary to remove commercials and have access to additional services.
Is Spotify Premium Worth It?
Yes, Spotify Premium is superior to the free plan since it removes ads, allows for unlimited playback on mobile devices, and grants access to services like Spotify Connect, Group Sessions, Private Listening, and more that are unavailable to non-paying users.
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