Price Increase Coming for YouTube Premium Subscribers with Legacy Plans

Long-standing YouTube Premium subscribers who still use legacy plans will soon need to deal with higher costs. Originally notified in December, these U.S. subscribers linked to former services like Google Play Music and YouTube Red were told that starting this year, their monthly fee would rise to the existing rate of $13.99.

A similar shift is happening for YouTube Music users across Europe, where some have shared emails about forthcoming price hikes. Notably, just as in the United States, a few subscribers have mentioned a temporary grace period where they pay the old rate for three more months.

Paul Pennington, a communications manager at YouTube, confirmed through an email to The Verge that these price adjustments apply to both parts of the service: The ad-free YouTube Premium and its music counterpart, as well as separate YouTube Music subscriptions.

This pricing update affects both new and longstanding subscribers in a variety of countries including Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Uruguay, and Turkey.

Subscribers who joined under the earlier pricing scheme available through Google Play will continue to enjoy their current rates for an additional three months, after which the new prices will take effect.

Legacy Plan Pricing Changes

A Reddit user claiming an initial subscription with the legacy plan noted transitioning from Google Play Music, which had a starting price of $7.99 per month in 2014. In Spain, their rate as members under this legacy plan will escalate from 7.99 euros to 10.99 euros. Nonetheless, this is still lower than the standard new subscriber rate for individual music subscriptions, set at 12.99 euros.