
The Spotify family plan can save you almost $50/month depending on how many people you have in your household. Their $19.99/month premium plan for families allows you to share one account with up to 5 other people as long as they all live at the same address. You can also find great deals on cell phone family plans, saving you $20/month on each line!
Spotify's premium plan for families can save you money if you're paying for separate premium plans already. Read on to learn about the pros and cons of this music streaming package.
What is Spotify Family?
First things first, what is Spotify Premium? Basically, it's the paid version of Spotify—the popular music streaming service. With Spotify Premium, you're paying for the benefit of zero commercials, unlimited track skipping, offline listening, plus more!
Spotify Premium for Family (aka Spotify Family) goes an extra step and you can share your plan with up to 5 other people. So, if you have 6 people in your family (including yourself) all with a personal premium account, you could potentially be saving over $50/month by switching to a single Spotify family plan.
Spotify vs Spotify Family
| Features | Free | Premium | Premium for Family |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shuffle play | |||
| No ads | - | ||
| Unlimited track skips | - | ||
| Offline listening | - | ||
| Access to all tracks | - | ||
| High quality audio | - | ||
| Audiobooks | - | ||
| Account sharing | - | - | |
| Cost Per Month | Free | $11.99 | $19.99 |
Spotify Family cost
At $19.99/month the Spotify family plan is only $8/month more than the standard Spotify Premium plan ($11.99/month).
Even if your household only has 2 people in it, you'll save by getting the Spotify Premium for Family play, as opposed to both of you buying your own separate Spotify Premium accounts. It's clear to see that he Spotify family plan is a great deal.
Pros and cons of Spotify Family
- Save over $50/month as a group (if sharing amongst 6 people)
- Each member of the family plan has their own account with their own music, playlists, and recommendations
- Simultaneous use of Spotify accounts (since they're all still counted as separate accounts, you won't kick each other off when you listen to music)
- One bill per family plan (one person is responsible for all costs)
- All members of the Spotify family plan need to live at the same address to be eligible
- If the main account holder cancels the family plan, all members will be reverted to the free Spotify plan
How much data do I need?
If you're new to Spotify, you might be wondering whether you have enough data to handle the amount of music you'll be streaming. On average, an hour of streaming music through Spotify will use around 115MB of data—that's about 1GB if you listen to music all day, and that's just for music!
You're probably using your data for other things too, like:
- Browsing the web
- Using other apps
- Watching online videos
- Social media
All of this will add up quickly and unless you have a cell phone plan with a high data allowance, you're going to start running into problems with your internet speed. If you want to change your cell phone plan to include more data, ask your current carrier how much it is to upgrade, or switch to a new cell phone plan with a new provider.
Unlimited data and family plans
If you're worried about your data usage, then worry no further. There are plenty of unlimited data plans available from a number of cell phone providers. Plans start from as low as $25/month and you can even get some cheaper limited time offer deals if you're lucky!
Since you'll already be on a shared Spotify Family plan, why not also make your cell phone plan shared also? You can make a lot of savings by having everyone in your family on a shared plan. Some carriers have specials where you can get 4 lines for just $100/month—that's just $25 per line!
Take that versus 4 x $50/month plans—that's a total of $100 a month in savings.
Tips to save data
If you don't have unlimited data, here are some tips to help you conserve the amount of data you use each month:
- Connect to WiFi whenever possible (e.g., at home, at work)
- Close any unnecessary apps running in the background
- Set data alerts on your phone or using your carrier's app
- Use the offline mode vs streaming for things like Spotify and podcasts
Angelo Ilumba
Senior Writer