3 Cheaper Alternatives To Spotify Premium You Should Switch To – BGR

Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services in the world, with over 700 million users. When you consider its features, it’s clear why. Spotify is popular because it’s cheap, easy to use, and considered the best option for most people. Besides, it offers a wide catalog of music and has diverse content on its platform, aside from music, such as podcasts, videos, and audiobooks. 

And best of all, it has a limited free version if you don’t want to pay for the service. However, if you’re a Spotify Premium subscriber and have heard rumors of Spotify increasing its subscription prices soon, you should make the switch. Don’t be loyal to the service when there are many suitable Spotify alternatives that other users endorse. 

Despite the host of music streaming services on the market that you can switch to, not all the options are cheaper. Some cost more than Spotify Premium’s $11.99/month, so it won’t make sense to switch to them if you’re looking to cut back on your monthly subscription bill. Thankfully, we’ve done extensive research to find the best cheap alternatives to Spotify Premium that you can use.

Bandcamp is mainly an online music store that enables artists to advertise their creations and sell directly to listeners. It’s also a music streaming service that contains a wide range of songs, mainly from up-and-coming and independent artists. As such, music available on Bandcamp could be hard to find elsewhere. The only caveat of this laser focus on new and upcoming artists is that there are fewer chances of finding songs from mainstream artists. One of the best things about Bandcamp is that it only allows artists to upload music in lossless formats such as WAV, FLAC, and AIFF, which makes the streaming quality just as good as Spotify’s. 

And unlike Spotify, Bandcamp doesn’t have a fixed subscription fee for listeners. Instead, the service allows users to listen to music and buy it directly from the artists. As a streaming service, you can also curate your personal playlist. You may need to buy a song or an album to play without limits, but some artists let you stream or download their music for free. Some also use a pay-what-you-can model, so that you can pay more or less depending on your circumstances. 

If you’d like to own your music, you should definitely use Bandcamp. There’s no digital rights management (DRM) software here, so once you purchase music, it’s yours — it can’t be taken away. While the lack of a fixed monthly price means you might easily spend more than Spotify’s $11.99/month, it might be cheaper if you set a fixed budget and plan your purchases well. You can download Bandcamp from the Google Play Store and App Store.

Amazon Music’s Unlimited plan is another great alternative to Spotify Premium. But whether it’s cheaper than Spotify Premium depends on whether you’re a Prime subscriber or not. Currently, it costs $10.99 a month for Prime subscribers. That’s $1 cheaper than Spotify’s current $11.99/month subscription price. However, if you don’t already pay for Prime, then Music Unlimited’s cost is similar to Spotify Premium. 

But you shouldn’t switch to Music Unlimited for the price alone. It also offers a competitive service that rivals Spotify Premium on features. It all starts with the platform’s wide music catalog of over 100 million songs, an assurance that you’ll certainly find your favorites on the app. Streaming quality is great as well, with support for CD-quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) and hi-res streaming (24-bit, 192 kHz), which Amazon calls HD and Ultra HD, respectively. 

Amazon Music Unlimited also supports spatial audio in Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio formats. You can stream music on Amazon Music through a variety of platforms, including mobile, tablet, desktop, and more. Like Spotify, the platform has diverse content aside from music. You can listen to podcasts, and the app gives you one free audiobook per month. Amazon Music is available to download from the Google Play Store and App Store.

If you’re worried about missing out on hi-res streaming by moving away from Spotify Premium, don’t be. Qobuz supports CD-quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) and hi-res audio (24-bit, 192 kHz) playback and has been one of the best music services for audiophiles even before Spotify launched lossless streaming. One special feature of Qobuz is that it displays the quality of the currently playing track, so you don’t need to dig into the settings menu to find out. 

The service has a rich catalog of music with over 100 million tracks and is available across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. Qobuz is a bit more expensive than Spotify Premium, with its Studio Solo plan priced at $12.99/month, $1 more than the Swedish music streaming service. However, Qobuz becomes cheaper if you pay for the service annually at $129.99, which averages out to about $10.83/month or over $1 cheaper than Spotify. 

Qobuz leans heavily on human-curated content, with playlists and editorial content created by humans. The app publishes articles, reviews, and has a magazine that gives you a deeper understanding of the artists behind your favorite songs. Its magazine is especially handy if you’re an audiophile, as it covers everything from monthly music roundups to audio gear and artist interviews. You can download Qobuz from both the App Store and Google Play Store.

There are many alternatives to Spotify. Some are expensive, while others are cheaper. To come up with the list of cheaper alternatives, we used price as the main guiding factor by primarily focusing on services that cost less than Spotify’s current $11.99/month subscription price.

We selected services that offer either a lower monthly subscription price or those that are cheaper if you commit for a longer period, such as Qobuz. Aside from the subscription price, we also considered cross-platform support, music catalog, availability, and ease of use.