‘I want to cancel’: You Tube Premium quietly hikes its US prices for the first time in three years, forcing many users to consider the unthinkable | Tech Radar

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‘I want to cancel’: You Tube Premium quietly hikes its US prices for the first time in three years, forcing many users to consider the unthinkable

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You Tube Premium has silently raised its tier prices

Google started emailing users about the change before announcing it

For a lot of subscribers, this could be the last straw

You Tube Premium is the latest subscription service to hike its prices in the US, but the timing couldn’t be more awkward — especially since it follows the controversy of its 90-second unskippable ads for free users.

As spotted by eagle-eyed users on Reddit, You Tube has already increased its monthly fees across all of its plans, including its budget Premium Lite tier which was launched only last year. With the new changes in place, subscription prices have gone up by as much as $4.

The standard You Tube Premium individual plan has now increased to

You Tube might be planning to charge users to use its playback-speed tool

Google rolls out unskippable ads to You Tube's TV experience to lure more Premium users

Furious US Netflix fans lash out over new price hike as other users look on with concern

Unlike Netflix where customers are no stranger to a frequent price increase, fee hikes don't come as often to You Tube Premium members. The last time Google raised its subscription prices was back in 2023 when individual plans went from

For starters, it took Google a while to speak on the change (the company gave a statement to Variety), leaving subscribers to find out for themselves via email. However, not everyone was informed, and those who’ve received emails are still scratching their heads — why is Google hiking these prices?

One user shared a screenshot of their email which detailed the following: “To continue delivering great service and features, we’re increasing your price to $20.99 a month. We don’t make these decisions lightly, but this update will allow us to continue to improve Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on You Tube”.

The biggest difference between You Tube Premium and a platform such as Netflix is that the latter has a continuous output of original content, therefore it has somewhere valuable to invest money generated from subscription fees. Another user pointed this out, claiming that You Tube doesn’t have original content on Netflix’s scale to invest in, as all of its hosted content is made by creators with You Tube channels, leading users to question where their money is really going.

With this in mind, You Tube has also come under fire recently for its 90-second unskippable ads on its TV app. But despite the company’s comment against claims that it is conducting secret tests, the price hikes give us a good enough reason to believe that Google is trying to lure even more free users over to the dark side — but will it cost them the loyalty of long-time subscribers in the process?

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Rowan is an Editorial Associate and Apprentice Writer for Tech Radar. A recent addition to the news team, he is involved in generating stories for topics that spread across Tech Radar's categories. His interests in audio tech and knowledge in entertainment culture help bring the latest updates in tech news to our readers.

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• ‘I want to cancel’: You Tube Premium quietly hikes its US prices for the first time in three years, forcing many users to consider the unthinkable