Photo Credit: YouTube
YouTube Premium is getting a price hike for international subscribers—with the hike determined by region. The price hikes differ per region, with some regions seeing between 30% and 50% increases in the price of YouTube Premium.
YouTube has raised its prices several times since 2020. The last major YouTube Premium price hike in the United States happened in July 2023—with an international price hike following in November 2023. Now prices are going up outside the United States again—which could signal a future price hike stateside.
Users on reddit have begun reporting receiving notice of a price hike in their region. The price of a YouTube Premium Family subscription is rising from €17.99 to €25.99 starting November. A Swiss user reports a 40% hike from 23.90CHF to 33.90CHF. Norway is reporting a raise of 60% from 179kr to 269kr for the family plan. Needless to say, many people are pissed and are canceling their subscriptions and committing to using a browser that supports ad block.
“I will not pay 44% more for the same mediocre service,” reads one reddit comment about the price hikes. “Everything has a price and 25.99EUR per month is not the correct amount for this service. I would have considered a 10% price increase. Good luck losing customers and revenue—I’m moving our music library to Spotify Duo next weekend and will find a way around the YouTube ads.”
Most of the disgruntled reddit reports come from European users, but the price hike appears to be impacting the Middle East, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. It’s also worth noting that anyone who pays for YouTube Premium through the iOS App Store will see a higher price subscription due to Apple’s 30% tax—which is passed on to the user.
With these latest price hikes, both Spotify and Apple Music are more attractive to users who don’t care about losing ad-free YouTube. YouTube rolled out unskippable ads on smart TVs last year and this year it introduced pause ads that pop up when a video is paused.
