Google offers 4 months of free Play Music

In an effort to compete with Apple Music, Google is offering a special July 4 four-month free trial of Play Music for users who live in the United States. The offer is available only to U.S. customers who haven’t previously signed up to the service.

Play Music boasts a library of more than 35 million tracks. Like Apple Music it costs $9.99 per month at full price, but has offered various reductions to try and pick up more subscribers — such as a Valentine’s Day promotion slashing 50 percent off the regular price.

A subscription to Play Music not only provides ad-free and unlimited access to Google’s library of tracks and albums, but also gives customers a subscription to YouTube Red, granting ad-free music videos, the ability to save videos offline, access to Red Originals, and background playback.

While Google’s Play Music service hasn’t released subscriber figures, Apple Music recently marked its one-year birthday by revealing that it has 15 million paying subscribers — approximately half the number that Spotify enjoys.

You can find out more about Google’s current offer by clicking here.

Luke Dormehl

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.