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Google is ending its years-long special treatment of grandfathered YouTube Premium members—those from YouTube Red and Google Play Music days—this year. Starting in January 2024, they will have to pay the same amount for a Premium subscription as new users. The company has already started notifying its loyal users about this price hike.
Grandfathered YouTube Premium members are in for a huge price hike
In July this year, Google announced a global price hike for YouTube Premium, with the individual plan going up by $2 to $13.99 per month ($18.99 a month if you’re subscribing from the iOS YouTube app—Apple’s commission, you know). The family plan, which increased from $17.99 per month to $22.99 per month in October 2022, remained unchanged. However, its annual subscription cost went up by $20 to $139.99.
It was the first price increase for YouTube Premium since 2018 when Google raised prices by $2 a month to $11.99 for an individual subscription. However, on both occasions, Google exempted grandfathered Premium members from this price bump. The company wanted to show its appreciation for loyal members. As such, those users got access to the service at almost half the price—$7.99 a month for some and $9.99 for others.
Google said it plans to increase the prices for them a few months later but didn’t specify a timeline. We now have information that the new prices will be effective for loyal YouTube Premium users in January 2024. According to 9to5Google, the company recently started sending emails to affected users, notifying them about this impending price increase, which may apply to their billing cycles starting next 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 YouTube,” the email reads. Well, this is the same statement Google sent to existing YouTube Premium subscribers last month when it rolled out the price hike internationally. Premium users in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, Germany, Poland, and Turkey saw prices go up at the start of November.
Google recently announced a few new features for Premium
Amid a global price hike, YouTube Premium has added a few new features too. Most notably, the 1080p Premium streaming quality is now available to everyone on Android, smart TVs, and the web client. At launch, it was limited to iOS users. Additionally, the “Continue watching” reminder for Premium subscribers has arrived on tablets and TVs. Premium users also get early access to new experimental features on YouTube.