Hulu and Spotify have teamed up to offer U.S. college students one heck of a deal. For $4.99 per month, the same cost as Spotify’s existing student plan, users now get access to Spotify Premium and Hulu’s “Limited Commercials” plan.
The offer is a great way of the companies staying competitive with the likes of Amazon and Apple, both of who offer their own $5 a month low-cost student plans.
The team-up comes at a time when music streaming services are increasingly turning to video content as an “added extra.” Amazon offers original programming to Prime subscribers, while Apple Music offers a range of original shows — with more coming in 2017.
Hulu mainly offers movies and TV shows from other networks and studios, but has started to move into original content production on its own. Notably, it was the company responsible for the smash hit The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood.
At present, Spotify has upwards of 60 million paying subscribers, making it easily the biggest of the streaming music services on the market. Apple Music, by comparison, has 27 million.
Amazon recently reduced the student subscription price of its Amazon Music Unlimited service to $4.99, the same amount that Apple charges. That means that the three companies now all offer comparable services to students — although the cheapest music service is reserved for students who subscribe to Amazon Prime, who can get a six month subscription for just $1 a month.
Which premium music service (if any) do you currently subscribe to? Leave your comments below.
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.
2 responses to “Spotify and Hulu partner to offer $4.99 monthly subscriptions for students”
Whenever a company offers special pricing to one segment of customer and not all, I don’t use it. I feel the same way about businesses that offer something special to first time customers neglecting loyalists.
Where’s the link to this promo?