Five years after launching YouTube Premium in India, the company has announced a hike in the rate of its premium membership. The individual membership, with a 15% hike, will not cost Rs 149 per month as compared to Rs 129 earlier.
However, the steepest hike is in the family membership category. YouTube Premium family membership, which was priced at Rs 189 per month, and allowed one to share the account with five more family members, now costs Rs 299, making it a 58.2% price increase. Simply translated, picking this option is viable only if there are two or more members sharing it.
According to YouTube's website, which had a category-wise break-up of the rates, the student plan, which was launched for Rs 79 per month now costs Rs 89, which is an increase of 12.65%. The pre-paid plans have also been hiked accordingly.
YouTube Premium offers viewers an ad-free experience with background play and offline downloads for videos on YouTube, as well as access to all YouTube Originals. YouTube Music Premium is included in YouTube Premium membership.
"We don't make these decisions lightly, and this update will allow us to continue to improve Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube," said the company.
Existing premium subscribers have started receiving emails asking them to agree to the new price. The mail states if no action is taken by the next billing date in September, the subscription will end before the new price kicks in from the billing date after that in October.
YouTube increased Direct Premium Family Plan subscription cost from INR 189 per month to INR 299 per month in India.
This is more than 58% price increase.
Time to say goodbye to YouTube? Because the ads are crazy. pic.twitter.com/hQyGZYlb29— Sahil (@MrSahilBawa) August 27, 2024
You can check out the new changes on youtube.com/premium.
(Source: YouTube website)
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