Spotify Premium is something that has some very mixed opinions online. £12.99 per month? Way too much to pay just for music, right? Well... I tried it myself. As an avid music listener, I use Spotify a lot, so thought that it was about time to at least have a go.

What are the plans?

Spotify Premium offers four different plans. Individual, which is a standard subscription at £12.99 per month. Duo, which allows two accounts to share premium benefits at £17.99 per month (note that the two accounts must live at the same address).

Family, which allows up to six accounts to connect at the price of £21.99 per month (once again at the same address), and finally Student, which costs £5.99 per month. Student is only available to people enrolled in college or university, and the account will last for a year before having to reverify that you are still a student.

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What does it offer?

Premium has many different features. Some are incredibly basic and most likely not worth the money, but others are really quite unique and interesting. The features include:

• Ad-Free Listening
• Unlimited Skips
• Downloadable Music
• Higher Audio Quality
• On-demand Playback
• Audiobooks
• AI DJ
• Jam (listen with friends)

When using Spotify, a few of these differences are blatantly obvious, like getting an ad that says "after this you'll have one hour of uninterrupted listening" and then getting the same ad again ten minutes later.

My Thoughts

When I first got Spotify, I wasn't the biggest fan of it. I'd rather cue up music on YouTube or my Amazon Alexa to play it than listen to the same adverts over and over again. However.

I did create my own playlists on Spotify, and really enjoyed checking my Spotify Wrapped (a really great feature, they should bring back the proper analysis of your music). I then went on a long trip and decided to sign myself up for premium in order to download my playlists for the journey.

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At first, it feels a bit overkill to be honest, paying so much for a few new features. However, as time goes on, you definitely warm up to it. I walk home after school everyday, so being able to listen to music or podcasts offline is a real game changer for me.

Audiobooks can also be really helpful. For example, if you're reading something in school and don't want to actually read at home, you can most likely find the book on Spotify and listen to it. The caveat to this is that you only get fifteen audiobook hours with an individual premium account. With the others, you get a different specified amount of listening hours for audiobooks per month.

Final Opinions

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I know this probably sounds cliché and fake, but honestly: Once you try it, you can't go back. Now that I'm completely accustomed to being able to play a song on demand, I don't want to have to just listen to its whole playlist on shuffle.

In conclusion, for me, Spotify premium is worth it. Now, I use the family plan which is shared within my household and it's an absolute essential for us, all frequent users of the app. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't often listen to music, but if you do, it's a complete game changer.