Forget $9.99 per month — Apple might slash the price of Apple Music subscriptions to better compete with streaming music rivals, most notably Amazon.
According to a new report, Apple could drop monthly subscription prices by as much as 20 percent. The Apple Music price drop would mean a regular subscription would cost users around $7.99 per month, while a family package would go for $12.99.
Provided this news is accurate, the price cut could take effect as soon as Christmas, giving Apple the option of kicking off the new pricing with a holiday promotion of some sort.
Amazon recently launched its new Music Unlimited service. Amazon offers the same $9.99 monthly fee as Apple Music to regular users, but a reduced $7.99 monthly charge for monthly customers — and an insanely cheap $3.99 for owners of the Amazon Echo.
[contextly_auto_sidebar]
In doing so, Amazon beat Apple to a lower price point that had reportedly been Apple’s goal from the beginning. One of the big rumors about Apple Music was that Cupertino wanted to charge users five bucks a month, based on the idea that the average iTunes user spends $60 per year on downloaded music, which translates to $5 every four weeks.
However, the plan got shot down by record execs. Apple settled on its $10 price point for Apple Music, which is on par with streaming pioneer Spotify.
Apple Music price drop?
So why would Apple now be able to offer music at a cheaper price, having failed to reach an agreement early on? Simply put, because Apple would be cutting its own profit margins in order to offer the $7.99 rate.
At present, it appears that any Apple Music price drop would require Apple to not just take in less money itself, but also to pay the difference from its agreed-upon price point to record labels Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
Would the lower Apple Music subscription price have an impact on your decision about whether to use the service? Leave your comments below.
Source: Digital Music News
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
5 responses to “Apple Music might be about to get a big price drop”
The service is already so cheap as it is! I personally love the service. If you are invested in apples ecosystem Apple music is the perfect choice. Their family plan just cant be beat with like 6 users for $15.
It’s pretty great, but I’m guessing you have to do it through Family Sharing? Spotify lets you share without having to share a payment method. It lets you split a membership with friends also and pay more like $3/mo pp.
Create an AppleID for just this usecase and Family Sharing is no problem. And as long as you use this AppleID for streaming music (read: no bought iTunes albums) and nothing else, there’s nothing to worry about the shared payment method. Comes down to $15/6 = $2.50 per person, or maybe in a few months $13/6 = $2.17 pp.
The Amazon cost is misleading in the article… its $3.99 for the “Echo-only” plan in which you can only stream through your Echo device. A true mobile subscription is still around $10 depending on if you’re a Prime subscriber or not.
Spotify has a free option, end of the conversation…