Spotify’s latest round of price hikes has many subscribers looking for alternatives, but switching services isn’t the only way to save. Buried deep within Spotify’s plan options is a lesser-known, cheaper music-only tier called Spotify Basic—an option that’s easy to miss and unavailable to new users.
Spotify Basic was first introduced in mid-2024, but it remains largely hidden at the bottom of Spotify’s Premium plan listings. Unlike Premium, you can’t sign up for Basic directly. Instead, it’s only available as a downgrade option for existing Premium subscribers—and even then, only for those Spotify deems “eligible.”
Feature-wise, Spotify Basic looks a lot like Premium. Subscribers still get ad-free access to Spotify’s full music catalog, offline downloads, and on-demand playback with no shuffle restrictions. For users who only care about music streaming, the experience is largely the same as Premium at a lower monthly cost.
The key differences come down to extras. Spotify Basic does not include audiobooks, whereas Premium plans bundle 15 hours of audiobook listening each month for individual subscribers or the plan manager on Duo and Family tiers. In addition, Spotify reserves lossless audio streaming for Premium subscribers, leaving Basic users with standard high-quality (lossy) audio.
At launch in June 2024, Spotify Basic Individual was priced at $10.99 per month—$1 cheaper than Premium Individual at the time. Since then, Spotify has announced another price hike, raising Premium Individual to $12.99 per month. Spotify has not publicly confirmed whether the Basic plan price has changed as well, and the company does not list Basic pricing on its website. Pricing details for Basic Duo and Basic Family plans are similarly absent, despite those tiers being referenced in Spotify’s support documentation.
There are also notable restrictions. Spotify says that only certain subscribers will see the Basic option when attempting to change plans, without explaining what determines eligibility. More importantly, if a user signs up for Spotify Basic and later cancels, they are permanently barred from re-subscribing to the Basic tier. That kind of condition is typical of grandfathered plans nearing retirement, although archived versions of Spotify’s support pages show the rule has been in place since at least early 2025.
