In response to overwhelming requests from customers, Spotify (News - Alert) has finally announced a family plan feature that will allow up to five family members to share a single billing account.
Called Spotify Family, the service allows each member of the subscription to have their own username and account for managing playlists and recommendations without interfering with those of others on the same subscription. An additional gripe with the previous model that many customers who share accounts cited was that whenever one user started playing music on a device, it would stop it for the other user, leading to a battle over control.
“This is one of the most asked for features from our audience,” says Ken Parks, Chief Content Officer at Spotify. “With today’s announcement we’re making it easier than ever for the whole family to experience Spotify Premium on their phones, at home and on the go.”
The family subscription offers a slight discount over purchasing separate premium accounts for each family member. In the US it will cost $14.99 for two users per month, $19.99 for three users, $24.99 for four users and $29.99 for five users (for a single user it remains $9.99 per month). This constitutes a 50 percent discount for each user that is added.
All the features of a premium account are included for each user, even with the discounted rate offered by the family plan. This includes unlimited on-demand and offline listening with no ads whatsoever, and completely separate usernames for each family member.
If it weren’t for Spotify’s formidable market share, the complaints that have floated around for a while before finally being answered with the announcement of this service may have done much more damage to the company. Competitor Rdio has already offered a similar family plan for a few years, allowing only two users at a time originally - before upping it to five last summer.
Although not immediately available to customers, Spotify Family will be rolling out in the U.S. over the coming weeks.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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