With YouTube bumping up advertisements trying to restrict users from blocking YouTube Ads and taking strict actions on ad blockers, you might want to subscribe to YouTube Premium. YouTube Premium is a subscription tier that offers ad-free videos, a handful of features, and YouTube Music. If you’re asking yourself if the Premium is worth it, especially after Google bumped up the price recently, you’ve arrived at the right place. Here’s how much YouTube Premium costs and if it’s worth your attention and hard-earned money.
YouTube Premium Cost and What It Gets You
The individual YouTube Premium subscription costs $13.99/month when subscribed on Android or via the Web. Subscribing from an iPhone will make it $18.99/month since Apple takes a cut from the price, but you should be good if you subscribe to Premium via Web or a spare Android device. The yearly subscription will set you at $139.99.
The family and student plans will cost you $22.99 and $7.99 a month, respectively. The family plan allows up to 5 devices to reap the benefits of YouTube Premium. There’s also a YouTube Music-only tier that costs $10.99 / month or $109.99 yearly for individuals and $16.99 for a family of 5, just like Spotify.
As for what the Premium subscription gets you, the benefits are as follows:
- Subscription to YouTube Music included
- Ad-free playback
- Download videos for offline viewing
- Background play
- Continue watching
- Premium controls
- Picture-in-picture support
- Queue videos on phones and tablets
- Better video bitrate
- Jump ahead, Smart downloads
Is YouTube Premium Worth It?
If you’re looking for a short answer, yes, the benefits are worth it. As someone who’s been using YouTube Premium for almost a year, here are my thoughts on who should consider subscribing to YouTube Premium, or if you should steer clear.
If You Hate Ads
It’s no surprise that people considering YouTube Premium are primarily because of ads shown on the platform. Google has upped the frequency of ads on YouTube over the past few years, so if you absolutely despise advertisements, Premium might be worth giving a shot.
Sure, the slightly steep and recently-increased $14 price tag is a bit pricey, but time is money. You will be saving a lot of time with no ads on YouTube Premium. Not to mention, you may start enjoying other benefits that come with the subscription.
Striking Two Birds With One Stone
You may know that Spotify has recently increased its subscription cost, and it sparked a sense of disappointment as users started scouring the internet for alternatives. Well, YouTube Music is a great alternative to Spotify.
If you use both YouTube and Spotify, subscribing to YouTube Premium gets you YouTube Music; hence, you can essentially ditch paying for two different subscriptions and pay just for Premium to enjoy both ad-free videos and music.
Google does have an independent subscription tier that gets you just YouTube Music for $11 a month, but we’d suggest you spend the extra $2 to get and enjoy all the YouTube Premium perks.
We wish there was a Premium video-only option for a lesser cost, like the independent YouTube Music-Only subscription. Not everyone listens to Music, and the plan would’ve made Premium accessible to more people.
Much Better Playback, Many Features
Features like Background play, Continue watching, and Picture-in-picture are the three big reasons why you might want to get the Premium subscription. The feature I use the most is Continue watching, as it helps me resume the video on my PC exactly from where I left watching it on my phone. It’s a great feature if you often find yourself juggling between devices.
Background play and Picture-in-picture are great features if you want to watch content while simultaneously getting work done. PiP in Android 15 received new animations recently, and it’s a great way to watch content while working on something else. Even YouTube Shorts, the popular video consumption format, received PiP support, which is only reserved for Premium subscribers.
Besides, YouTube Premium also offers the ability to play videos in a better bitrate. For those unaware, you should see reduced artifacts in action-packed videos that involve lots of movement.
Offline, Smart Downloads
I’ve personally never used these features, although I have them both enabled. Smart downloads automatically download videos that are as per your tastes, for offline viewing. Offline downloads allow you to save videos manually for offline viewing. I hardly watch any content on my smartphone, but if you do, these features may come extremely handy.
Queue Videos and Premium Controls
The ability to queue videos on phones and tablets isn’t a huge feature, and the Premium Controls feature mostly feels like a gimmick. The latter opens up a menu with UI buttons such as Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, and Video Quality, which are already present in the YouTube player.
Should You Purchase Premium?
Deciding if you want to purchase Premium or not really depends on how you weight these two things — Ad-free playback and the price. The rest of the features, while still significant, are just perks on top. For a starting price of $13.99, YouTube Premium brings a lot to the table besides Ad-free playback. Things such as Continue watching, PiP, and Smart/Offline downloads add to the experience and make it worth buying.
Besides, YouTube Music is included, which has only gotten better over the past few years. If Ads aren’t an issue for you, features such as Offline/Smart downloads and PiP, alongside Background play and Continue watching, still enhance the YouTube user experience and make Premium a good investment.
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