Amazon Music Unlimited Increases Subscription Rates for Second Time

Amazon is once again increasing prices for Music Unlimited subscriptions, affecting both Prime members and family plan users. The rise in costs was first noticed by The Hollywood Reporter. Specifically, the Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan for Prime members will now be $10 per month or $99 per year, up from $9 per month or $89 per year. Additionally, the Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan will increase to $17 per month or $169 per year, up from $16 per month or $159 per year.

Those prices start right away for new subscribers, but old customers have a grace period until September 19th before they kick in. As for the reasons, Amazon magnanimously stated that the price increases will help bring “even more content and features.” Oh shit. You shouldn’t have.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Amazon has raised Music Unlimited prices this year. Back in January, costs went up for students and non-Prime subscribers, and last year Prime members got another hike. So basically, the prices for Prime members dropped from $8 to $10 per month in just over a year. It has a lot of new content and features.

Amazon isn’t the only streamer taking extra bills on our bank accounts. Almost all well-known streaming services have raised their prices over the past year. YouTube Premium went from $12 to $14 a month, Tidal got a boost, Apple Music and Apple TV+ saw price increases, Spotify went from $10 to $11 a month, and that’s just the beginning. Other streaming services like Peacock, Paramount+, Hulu, and Max increased their prices, which will likely add some of the new content and features everyone has been talking about.

In related news, Amazon Music Unlimited pays artists about $5,000 per million streams, which is in line with Apple Music and Spotify. In a perfect world, some of the price increase money would go to the people who actually make the stuff that fills these platforms. This is not a perfect world.