YouTube Premium Prices Skyrocket In More Countries Around The World, Almost Doubling For Some

Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL YouTube has announced a price hike for its YouTube Premium service in seven countries, weeks after hiking prices in the US.

What Happened: YouTube Premium prices have been increased in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, Germany, Poland, and Turkey, according to emails being sent out to existing YouTube Premium subscribers. The move follows a similar price increase in the U.S. in July.

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The rate change affects YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium's individual, family, and student plans. The new pricing came into effect on Nov. 1, and existing subscribers will see the revised pricing in their upcoming billing cycle.

In Australia, subscribers will now have to pay AU$16.99 for the YouTube Premium Individual subscription, marking the first price increase in the country. Subscribers currently paying a lower rate will continue to do so for at least three additional months.

However, the biggest shock is for YouTube Premium Family subscribers — YouTube has almost doubled the price of the family plan, increasing it from AU$17.99 to AU$32.99 per month. 

YouTube Premium offers ad-free viewing, audio-only playback for videos, offline downloads, and access to new features before general release. The service is cheaper when subscribed to directly online rather than via the iOS App Store.

Why It Matters: This increase in international pricing comes on the heels of a similar decision made by YouTube in the U.S. earlier this year. In July, the video-sharing platform quietly raised its subscription fee from $11.99 to $13.99 monthly for new subscribers.

This also comes at a time when YouTube is cracking down on ad blockers globally as it looks to push its users to either watch ads or pay for a YouTube Premium subscription.

Other streaming services have all announced price hikes, including Netflix Inc. NFLX, Walt Disney Co.’s DIS Disney+, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max, among others.

Photo by Chubo – my masterpiece on Shutterstock

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