Pandora Launches Premium Family Plan To Compete With Spotify, Apple Music

Just when there seems to be a multitude of music solutions out there, Pandora steps up their game and enters the family market with a premium plan that is set to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. The Premium service was launched last March after acquiring key assets from Rdio, according to The Verge.

So, what’s in this new plan?

Pandora will offer a $14.99 family plan that gives up to six users access to the Premium plan, which offers unlimited access to their music database for streaming. Once signed up, each user in the family plan will be able to set up their own identity and create their own radio stations and playlists. From here, they will then be able to listen to their music online or download their music selections to play while offline.

A normal Pandora Premium subscription is $10 per month, so if you are a family, this could get quite costly if every member of your family wanted a membership that entitled them to listen to music ad-free and in high-quality audio. However, The Verge suggests that the real reason Pandora has created this family plan is to draw their free subscribers to a paid subscription, as well as compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.

While there is certainly a market for paid subscription music services, Pandora also has approximately 80 million free subscribers it will try to entice to its paid family plan. However, it is unclear yet how many of these users will make the jump from the free to premium paid service.

But it is the music buffs who are willing to pay for their music privileges that will likely garner the most interest. Currently, Pandora has approximately 6 million paid subscribers. If you compare this to Spotify, with around 70 million paid subscribers, it becomes apparent why Pandora would want a piece of this market. On top of that, Spotify’s family plan comes in at $17.99 a month, as compared to Pandora’s new $15 family plan. However, this plan also only accommodates five users, as opposed to Pandora’s six users. By comparison, Apple music’s family plan is also $14.99 per month and also includes up to six members on the one plan.

For those who already have a Pandora individual Premium subscription, you can upgrade to the family plan by “going to your Pandora account settings on the web or in the mobile app and heading to the Subscription menu,” according to The Verge.