In April 2024, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced that the service would get a new paid subscription option focused only on music, but offered no further details at the time.
If, like me, you have no interest in audiobooks in your music streaming service, the idea of a cheaper option than Spotify Premium sounded great, especially considering the recent Spotify price hike in the US. But we didn’t know exactly what we were going to get – but maybe we do now, thanks to this new ‘Basic’ music plan that appeared in Britain and then disappeared.
The good news is that the new tier isn’t as ‘basic’ as it seems – it’s pretty much just Spotify Premium without the books. You get ad-free music, available for download, with shuffle and queue organization options and shared listening.
It also appears to be available in Individual, Duo and Family flavors. In exchange for the lack of audiobooks, the price was lower: £1 cheaper for individual users and £2 for family users. In effect, this reversed Spotify’s most recent price hike.
And then it disappeared.
Where has Spotify Basic gone?
When I logged into Spotify this morning to take another screenshot of the new subscriptions, which were previously under Profile > Account > Subscription > Available Subscriptions, they weren’t there – and I’ve since gone through the website with a fine-tooth comb and can’t find anything find a reference to the new basic plan on the British website.
What I suspect happened here is that Spotify didn’t want the new plan to be made public so quickly, so after it was noticed, they quickly pulled the plug to take it offline again. But the fact that it was there before suggests that it will be launched quite soon, and we have to assume that it will be launched in areas other than just Britain. I imagine there will be an uproar if it isn’t made available in the US.
£1 a month isn’t a huge saving, but I suspect a large number of Spotify Premium subscribers will welcome the opportunity to roll back the price increase to previous levels and give up the audiobooks. It could be a very popular option, and will bring Spotify back in line with the other top music streaming services in terms of price and features… except for high-resolution audio, of course.