Google has raised the price of the YouTube Premium family subscription. The privilege of ad-free browsing, background playback, and offline viewing for you and up to five other people will now cost you an additional $5 per month.
- What’s happening? Google has raised the monthly fee for the YouTube Premium Family Plan by five dollars, from $18 to $23 per month.
- Why care? If you and your family use this plan, the ad-free YouTube privilege will now cost you $5 more per month.
- What to do? Express your dissatisfaction on the Google support page, but don’t expect a response from the company. “You won’t get a response,”Google warns.
YouTube Premium Family Plan now costs $5 more per month
New subscribers can no longer sign up for the $18/month YouTube Premium Family Plan, which means a massive 25 percent price increase. 9to5Google reported that the price change for new subscribers is already in effect in the US and other countries:
US: $17.99 → $22.99 Canada: CAD 17.99 → CAD 22.99 UK: £17.99 -> £19.99 Argentina: Rs 179 → Rs 699 Japan: 1780 yen → 2280 yen
The more expensive YouTube Premium for Families is also coming soon to subscribers in Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey, YouTube confirmed in an email to The Verge:
We do not take these decisions lightly and we understand how hard this can be for our members. This new price reflects the full value of YouTube Premium and will allow us to develop even more Premium features and continue to support the creators and artists our members watch and listen to on YouTube.
A YouTube Premium Family subscription allows the primary user and up to five other people to watch YouTube videos without being interrupted by ads, download videos for offline viewing, and play videos in the background.
Avoid subscribing through the mobile app
Current subscribers will see the price increase in the next billing cycle starting on or after November 21, 2022, according to an email sent to YouTube subscribers.
The 25 percent increase in subscription costs is even higher if you subscribe in the mobile app on your iPhone through Apple’s familiar in-app purchase feature. In this case, you will be charged $30 per month as Apple receives a share of all App Store sales. Read: How to Request a Refund from Apple for Apps, Media, and Subscriptions
If you originally subscribed to the YouTube Red Family Plan or received a lower price as a former Google Play Music subscriber, you won’t get the higher price until April 2023, Google confirmed in an email.
YouTube Premium for individual accounts is still $12/month.
So, if the cost of the family plan has increased significantly, can we expect the price of the Premium plan for individual accounts to increase soon? Well, that’s yet to be seen, but we’ll be disappointed if it happens. At press time, YouTube Premium for individual accounts remained at $12 per month. Read: How not to overpay for YouTube Premium
For what it’s worth, Google has indeed increased the cost of an individual YouTube Premium subscription in two countries. In Argentina, an individual subscription to YouTube Premium has grown significantly from Rs 119 to Rs 389. And in Brazil, individual accounts are now charged TL 29.99 instead of TL 16.99.
This is the first major price increase for YouTube Premium, but it may not be the last because Google is trying to squeeze more revenue out of these eyeballs.
A recent experiment by YouTube put 4K streaming behind a paywall, requiring a Premium subscription to view clips in 4K. Google didn’t say how many people took part in the testing, what conclusions it made from the experiment, or what percentage of users actually subscribed to Premium to get 4K video support.