How Much Is YouTube Premium and Is It Worth It?
Aug. 13, 2024YouTube Premium Cost and What It Gets You
The family and student plans will cost you$22.99and$7.99a month, respectively. The family plan allows up to 5 devices to reap the benefits of YouTube Premium. There’s also a YouTube Music-only tier that costs$10.99 / monthor $109.99 yearly for individuals and$16.99for a family of 5, just likeSpotify.
If you’re looking for a short answer, yes, the benefits are worth it. As someone who’s been using YouTube Premium for almost a year, here are my thoughts onwho should consider subscribingto YouTube Premium, or if you should steer clear.
It’s no surprise that people considering YouTube Premium are primarily because of ads shown on the platform. Google has upped the frequency of ads on YouTube over the past few years, so if you absolutely despise advertisements, Premium might be worth giving a shot.Image Courtesy: Shutterstock
Background play and Picture-in-picture are great features if you want to watch content while simultaneously getting work done. PiP inAndroid 15received new animations recently, and it’s a great way to watch content while working on something else. Even YouTube Shorts, the popular video consumption format, receivedPiP support, which is only reserved for Premium subscribers.
Besides, YouTube Premium also offers the ability to play videos in abetter bitrate. For those unaware, you should see reduced artifacts in action-packed videos that involve lots of movement.
I’ve personally never used these features, although I have them both enabled.Smart downloadsautomatically download videos that are as per your tastes, for offline viewing. Offline downloads allow you to save videos manually for offline viewing. I hardly watch any content on my smartphone, but if you do, these features may come extremely handy.
The ability to queue videos on phones and tablets isn’t a huge feature, and the Premium Controls feature mostly feels like a gimmick. The latter opens up a menu with UI buttons such as Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, and Video Quality, which are already present in the YouTube player.
Deciding if you want to purchase Premium or not really depends on how you weight these two things — Ad-free playback and the price. The rest of the features, while still significant, are just perks on top. For a starting price of $13.99, YouTube Premiumbrings a lot to the tablebesides Ad-free playback. Things such as Continue watching, PiP, and Smart/Offline downloads add to the experience and make it worth buying.
Besides, YouTube Music is included, which has only gotten better over the past few years. If Ads aren’t an issue for you, features such as Offline/Smart downloads and PiP, alongside Background play and Continue watching, still enhance the YouTube user experience and make Premium a good investment.
