In a surprise move, the France-based music-streaming service Deezer has raised its subscription prices in key territories for the second time in 12 months.
On its website, the streaming company published a statement explaining the rise in costs, chalking it up to being able to provide “valuable support for artists and enhance fan experiences.”
Starting on Sept. 21, Deezer — which is the No. 1 streaming service in France and Brazil and either fifth or sixth-largest worldwide —will increase prices for all new premium and/or family subscriptions in key territories including France, UK, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. Current subscribers to premium and family tiers will see an increase in cost effective at the earliest on the first billing period after Oct. 24.
What this entails is twofold. In the EU, including France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, Individual Premium price will rise from EUR €10.99 to €11.99 per month starting today. (It will remain unchanged in the UK, where it’s currently priced at GBP £11.99.) In all mentioned territories, including the UK and select European markets, Family Plan packages will bump up to €19.99/£19.99 per month—a €2/£2 increase from its current price tag. In the United States, pricing will remain the same at $10.99 per month for an individual and $17.99 for a Family Plan. Additionally, new subscribers will have a two-month free trial across individual and family plans.
Last fall, Deezer became the first major music-streaming service to up its subscription prices in the U.S., by a dollar; other services followed, with Spotify, which had long been reluctant to increase prices, announcing its bump last.
“This is the most ambitious change to the economic model since the creation of music streaming and a change that will support the creation of high-quality content in the years to come,” said Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Deezer. “At Deezer we always put music first, providing a high-quality experience for fans and championing fairness in the industry. We are now embracing a necessary change, to better reflect the value of each piece of content and eliminate all wrong incentives, to protect and support artists. There is no other industry where all content is valued the same, and it should be obvious to everyone that the sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favourite artist streamed in HiFi.”
Deezer’s move to increase its subscription prices comes at a time where the streaming giants are starting to realize that users are willing to pay a higher premium for their services. In July, Spotify announced that it would raise its subscription prices in the U.S. to $10.99, its first price hike since launching in the country in 2011.
Last fall, Apple Music raised its subscription price to $10.99 per month for individuals, and increased its family plan by two dollars to $16.99 per month. Amazon Music Unlimited also raised its monthly price for non-Prime members to $10.99, while YouTube increased the price of YouTube Music Premium to $10.99 per month.
Earlier this month, the French company, which was valued last year at $1.1 billion, announced that it had partnered with with Universal Music Group to launch a new “artist-centric” streaming payment model to combat the industry standard “aggregate” model, where artists and songwriters are paid based on their percentage of total streams. That system has created an imbalanced industry where superstars are rewarded far beyond the rest of their peers. With the new model, poised to launch in France in the fourth quarter of 2023, Deezer seeks to boost earnings for what they refer to as “professional artists” in order to favor artists and songs that are most engaged with by users, as opposed to “non-artist noise audio” like recordings of crickets chirping and water running.
