Even the earliest YouTube Premium users can’t avoid a price hike anymore
Those who have been paying $7.99 a month for the past decade for Premium now have to get with the times and pay more.
Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Original YouTube Music Key beta testers paying $7.99/month are finally being bumped to $12.99/month for YouTube Premium.
- This ends nearly a decade-long period of grandfathered pricing left unchanged since 2014.
- Emails received by long-time customers from Google confirm the change will take effect on their next billing cycle.
YouTube Premium has seen several price hikes since its announcement, but the service kept honoring older rates that it initially offered to early adopters. In 2014, beta testers of YouTube’s “Music Key” streaming service paid $7.99 monthly. If you’ve continued paying that amount throughout these years, the party is finally ending, as YouTube is raising its prices for more grandfathered users.
YouTube Music Key was launched in November 2014. It offered ad-free music, offline and background playback, and more for $9.99 per month. If you joined during the beta period, you had to pay only $7.99 monthly.
