Still upset about last summer’s Spotify price bump? These lawmakers are on the case

Senators accuse the streaming giant of misleading consumers and manipulating licensing payouts.

Jun 24, 2025 - 00:40

Still upset about last summer’s Spotify price bump? These lawmakers are on the case

Last year Spotify introduced audiobook access and raised pricing for Premium plans.
While there was still a music-only Basic option, these senators don’t think consumers were made adequately aware.
They also accuse Spotify of orchestrating the whole change to lower its payouts to musicians.

Streaming services raising their prices is just as inevitable as death and taxes, and year after year, we slowly end up paying more and more for that access. While we may not like it, at least these price bumps are usually a pretty straightforward affair. But around this time last year, Spotify started charging subscribers more in a way that felt particularly sneaky. Now it turns out that a couple US senators haven’t forgotten about that mess, and are petitioning the FTC to step in.

It used to be that a Spotify Premium plan cost subscribers right about $11 a month. But last year Spotify introduced audiobooks, and used the opportunity to justify a change to its plans and pricing. The company raised its Premium plan by $1 to $12, and for that you’d get access to 15 hours of audiobook streams every month.