Various streaming providers have increased their prices in recent weeks and months. This applies to both video and music. With Tidal, another provider is now announcing that it wants to raise the prices for its subscriptions. TECHBOOK reveals what customers will have to pay for the music streaming service in the future.
At the end of February, Amazon had raised the subscription costs for its Music Unlimited service from EUR 9.99 a month to EUR 10.99. However, other prices apply to Prime customers. Now comes the competitor Tidal, who is currently informing its customers by email about the impending price increase. From August 1st, the price increase at Tidal should therefore come into force.
Price increase affects Tidal Hi-Fi subscription
The Hi-Fi subscription, which allows music to be streamed with a bit rate of up to 1411 kbit/s in Hi-Fi quality, is affected by the price increase. According to the provider, customers have access to over 100 million songs and 650,000 videos without advertising. Tidal’s hi-fi subscription currently costs €9.99 per month. From August 1, subscribers have to pay EUR 10.99 for the offer, which is EUR 1 more per month. With the price increase, Tidal is catching up with its competitors Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music and Deezer Premium, where the subscription already costs 10.99 euros per month. Only Spotify still offers access for the usual EUR 9.99. However, the provider is planning to introduce a new hi-fi subscription this year and could also adjust its price structure in the course of the new launch. However, this has not yet been confirmed.
Tidal customers are currently being notified of the planned price increase via email. It says:
We are increasing the price for the Hi-Fi subscription to 10.99 euros on August 1, 2023. We would like to remind you that on your first billing date on or after August 1st, your Hi-Fi subscription will automatically renew at the new monthly price of €10.99. Your saved payment method will be charged unless you cancel your subscription before this time.
Notification from Tidal
As from a post on Reddit shows, not only customers within Germany are affected. Rather, Tidal is increasing its prices in several countries at once. These include, for example, Argentina, the USA, Mexico and Spain. If customers do not agree with the price increase, they can cancel their subscription. However, the termination must be made in good time before the new monthly price is billed, according to the provider.
Unfortunately, even when asked by TECHBOOK, Tidal did not reveal whether and if so to what extent the other subscriptions were also affected by a price increase. With Hi-Fi-Plus, for example, Tidal offers another subscription with which the transmission quality is even higher, but which also costs significantly more at 19.99 euros. Tidal also offers special subscriptions for families and students. At least one user wrote on Reddit that the family subscription in the US should cost $16.99 instead of $14.99 in the future. That would be an increase of $2 per month. In Germany, the family subscription costs EUR 14.99 per month, so an increase to EUR 16.99 from August seems likely.
Reasons for price adjustment not entirely clear
It is striking that Tidal does not give any specific reason for the upcoming price increase in its notification to customers. This point also annoys many customers who express their opinion on Reddit. It can therefore only be assumed that the adjustment is related to the overall rising costs on the market. Not only have energy and labor costs risen sharply in recent months, customers also like to underestimate the costs of the servers. Amazon also justified the price adjustment for Music Unlimited in February with the rising licensing costs for songs and albums. According to the provider, these have increased by a good 10 percent per customer in the past three years.
Tidal will be similar to the competition, even if the company is unfortunately silent on this. When we asked TECHBOOK, they didn’t want to give us any precise information on the price increase either.
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TECHBOOK means
“No customer likes price increases. However, it is understandable that providers have to pass on the increased costs in various areas in order to remain economical in the future. In the case of Tidal, the price increase amounts to one euro per month, which is certainly manageable for many and all in all does not seem excessively high. It’s just a pity that the provider acts somewhat non-transparently and does not give any concrete reasons for the adjustment even when asked. Providers like Apple Music or Amazon with its Music Unlimited subscription are more transparent here. Customers cannot avoid the surcharge either, but in the end they know what they are paying for.” – Rita Deutschbein, Editor-in-Chief