YouTube Premium just saw its first major price hike in several years, suggesting that even Google is feeling a pinch of the unpredictable economic climate.
From November, the monthly cost of the YouTube Premium family plan – which allows up to six accounts to use the same subscription – will increase from $17.99 to $22.99 in the US and Canada and from £17.99 to £19.99 in the UK . The previous increase means a 30% increase in prices. Australian users whose Premium family plan currently costs $22.99 a month will see no increase, YouTube TechRadar has confirmed.
The jump in monthly costs will affect new and existing users of the YouTube Premium family from November 21, although “old and valued members” who subscribed to the service before its rebranding from YouTube Red will remain on the same subscription plans until April 2023. However, after that, all users will be subject to the same monthly fees.
According to a notification email sent to existing subscribers, YouTube is raising the price of its Family Premium subscription “to continue to deliver great services and features.” The increase represents the first price change for any YouTube Premium tier since 2018.
YouTube’s single-user Premium plans are not affected by the increase at this time – but it seems only a matter of time before similar shocks hit all tiers of the service.
It seems that Google is preparing to react when this finally happens. The company founded M Support page (opens in a new tab) for users wishing to provide feedback on the aforementioned increase in the YouTube Premium family subscription price. Why? Probably to gauge how bad his customers would be if they used the same trick on all subscription levels.
A season of change
The family plan price hike comes after Google’s very public experimentation with what actually constitutes YouTube Premium. The service offers paid subscribers ad-free viewing, background playback, and the ability to download videos for offline use, but in recent months Google has flirted with introducing an in-resolution paywall for free YouTube users – a system that would see 4K video playback available exclusively to Premium subscribers.
Fortunately (at least for non-paying users), Google confirmed in October that it had ended the trial period of the paywall solution. However, if the company decides to raise the price of YouTube Premium across all areas, affected subscribers will hope to get more for their money than with their current Premium package.
For more YouTube-related content, check out our reports on how YouTube is taking account mentions to the next level and why we’re so excited to finally have YouTube widgets on iOS 16 and iPadOS.