YouTube Premium subscribers shocked as sudden price hikes announced for family plan
Subscribers of YouTube Premium are taking to social media to voice their shock and anger over an unexpected price increase of the service’s ad-free family plans. YouTube began sending emails to premium subscribers last night that the cost of family plans would jump from the current price of $17.99 per month to $22.99 per month starting on November 21. That’s an increase of 27%, which far outpaces even the relatively high inflation of the past year.
To put that new price in perspective, Netflix charges $19.99 per month for its Premium plan, which allows four simultaneous streams (the closest thing Netflix has to a family plan). The new Disney Plus Premium plan will cost $10.99 starting in December, and that allows access to four screens as well. Both plans are ad-free, like YouTube Premium.
While YouTube Premium allows six accounts to be added to one subscription plan—the equivalent of two more screens than Disney and Netflix allow—subscribers still are not happy with the 27% jump in price, as evidenced by the volume of complaints on Twitter.
More bad news: If you subscribe to the YouTube Premium family plan through the Apple App Store, your cost is going up even higher—to $29.99 a month. YouTube is doing this because it needs to give a cut of monthly subscriptions to Apple if users sign up through the App Store.
YouTube did not give a reason for the jump in the Premium family plan price, but if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that—for now—it looks as if YouTube Premium individual plans will remain at their current $11.99 per month price.
In addition to the price rise in the United States, the YouTube Premium family plan price appears to be going up in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
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