Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Students can now snag YouTube Premium and YouTube Music for cheap

By

YouTube has its targets firmly set on younger paid subscribers and it has a new plan to cash in on their often inhibited cashflow. The company has announced new student discounts for its YouTube Premium and YouTube Music services, slashing prices up to 50 percent for those with a student ID.

YouTube Premium, the paid video streaming services that brings subscribers access to the company’s original series, as well as ad-free videos, will now cost just $7 per month for students ($6 if they subscribe by January 31, 2019). That’s down from the typical $13 price tag for those who’ve already snagged their degree.

Recommended Videos

But the better deal is YouTube Music, which can now be had for 50 percent off its usual $10 per month price tag, offering listeners ad-free access to millions of songs for just $5 per month.

The clear aim of this initiative is to get more college-educated young people — who have the highest potential to be big earners down the line — hooked on YouTube’s premium streaming services. Offering discounts to post-secondary students is fairly common practice in the streaming universe. Companies like Spotify and Apple have long offered various discounts to students, though it remains unclear how successful those initiatives really are. Then again, if anyone has the data to back up the decision to let college kids get up to half off, it’s Google, YouTube’s parent company. This move indicates that there is at least some water in the discount streaming well.

And they probably need it. Unlike most other major streaming services, YouTube has been very hush-hush about just how many people actually use its music and video streaming services, likely because the number is relatively minor compared to its huge number of unpaid users. In its first year (then known as YouTube Red), the company only touted 1.5 million paid subscribers, according to The Verge. That’s tens of millions less than major competitors like Apple Music and Spotify, which now grow by more than that on a near monthly basis.

So far, these discounts are only available for those attending college in the United States, but we expect that student discounts will likely spread to other countries where YouTube exists should it prove successful for the company.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Parker Hall
Parker Hall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…
Why pause ads in YouTube aren’t the end of the world
A pause ad on a video on Peacock.

A pause ad seen on the Peacock streaming service that doesn't appear until you stop the video. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

There’s been a bit of teeth-gnashing this week after Google — a company that makes its money off advertising — dared to talk about advertising in public.

Read more
YouTube just massively angered Apple fans by adding a feature
A preview video of "Iceland Nature Drone Film" on YouTube, as seen on an Apple TV 4K.

The YouTube app on Apple TV will show a preview of a nature video after the app sits idle for four-and-a-half minutes. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

Let’s say you happen to be an app developer that develops an app for the world’s biggest online video platform — YouTube. And you’re tasked with developing the app for what we consider to be the best streaming hardware you can buy — Apple TV.

Read more
Tidal vs. Spotify: Which music streaming service has the features you need?
Tidal app for iOS on an iPhone 14 showing now playing screen with Max quality track.

Spotify is the world's leading music streaming service, with over 236 million active paid subscribers and a vast library of artists, albums, podcasts, and audiobooks. It is available on almost every desktop and mobile device. However, if you are a fan of hi-res audio, Tidal may be a better option as it emphasizes hi-res content and offers a vast collection of music and video content.

To determine which platform is better, we compared Spotify and Tidal based on price, sound quality, and supported devices.
Price
Spotify has two tiers of service for individual users. The free, ad-supported tier gives access to the entire library of Spotify content, but has restrictions on how you can interact with it and also has ads. The full-featured Premium plan costs $11 per month, which is standard for the industry now. Spotify also offers plans for two individuals for $15 per month, called Spotify Premium Duo, and a six-person family plan (with parental controls) for $17 per month. There's also a student plan at just $6 per month.

Read more