Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov
At least for now, Apple Music is holding steady on pricing – thereby capitalizing on a $2 Individual-tier advantage over both Spotify and Amazon Music. Will the widening gap – and an aggressive three-month trial offer – drive a significant market-share shift in the U.S.?
Drawing from exclusive data, DMN Pro is set to answer the decidedly interesting question throughout the remainder of the year. More immediately, however, plenty of customers are discussing leading on-demand DSPs’ pricing differences and considering jumping ship to Apple Music.
That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. At present, the Apple-operated platform still charges $10.99 per month for Individual, compared to $12.99 at Spotify and, in keeping with an announcement earlier in February, Amazon Music.
(Technically, Amazon Music Unlimited Individual costs Prime members $11.99 per month, and the service’s newest round of increases won’t hit existing accounts until March. Amazon Music also has a discount for those who bill annually, and as if there weren’t enough pieces to consider, one can save even more by selecting the audiobook-free option.)
Meanwhile, Apple Music Family currently costs $5 less per month than its Spotify counterpart. Against this backdrop – and on the heels of Amazon Music’s increases – Apple Music took a victory lap on X this past Friday.
“BTW, we’re still the same price,” the relevant tweet, having topped a staggering 30 million views, reads.
“Ready to move on? Bring everything with you… even your playlists,” a follow-up post spells out. “Try 3 months on us. Terms apply. Don’t look back.”
It seems safe to describe these messages as pieces of a broader strategy to turn up the heat on competitors. Furthermore, though Apple Music will have to budge on pricing at some point, the tweets certainly suggest that the move isn’t in the near-term cards.
How many subscribers will pivot before Apple Music’s bumps materialize, then? Unfolding on Reddit and elsewhere, the aforementioned discussions are very real and involve a number of self-described customers. At the top level, they definitely have an incentive to seek greener streaming pastures.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll do so en masse or land at (and stay with) Apple Music.
In the first place, it’s not a secret that the latter DSP lacks an ad-supported tier. Last September, Spotify relaxed its free-plan restrictions – a shrewd move given its early 2026 price increases and adverts’ lackluster revenue.
In other words, casual-fan subscribers might find defecting to Spotify Free preferable to switching services altogether.
(A worthwhile side note: On X, replies to Apple Music’s “same price” tweet are mainly coming not from prospective customers, but from ticked-off Apple buyers who, after shelling out huge sums on iPhones and more, believe Music access should be free. “Having to pay for Apple Music when owning all Apple products is still the biggest scam,” one individual vented.)
On the opposite end of the customer spectrum, it doesn’t seem impossible for a feature-heavy superfan tier to compel diehards to remain in (or return to) the Spotify ecosystem.
Of course, this possibility depends on the long-awaited offering’s actual release. Finally, could the pricing chaos (plus a good dose of AI-slop fatigue) compel fans to explore different streaming paths altogether?
Back when $9.99 was Individual’s default monthly price in the States, Qobuz stood out both for its promise of higher-quality audio and its higher prices. Now, the platform charges the same as Spotify for Individual (and less than $11 per month with annual billing), with smaller Duo and Family price tags even before the full-year discount.
