As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, including a fee if you start Amazon Music Unlimited through a link here. Spotify and Apple pay us nothing. Amazon Music also happens to be the cheapest option for one specific group of readers — we’ve flagged exactly who below, and been equally clear about who should pick something else. See our methodology.
Music streaming has converged so tightly that price barely separates these three. Apple Music is $11.99 a month, Spotify is $12.99, and Amazon Music Unlimited sits around $11–12 depending on whether you have Prime.
A dollar a month is not a reason to move your playlists. But there are two decisions on this page worth real money, and neither is “which service.”
What each one actually costs
Spotify and Apple publish their prices openly, so these are exact, read from their own plans pages today:
| Plan | Spotify | Apple Music |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | $12.99 | $11.99 |
| Student | $6.99 | $6.99 |
| Duo (2 people) | $18.99 | — |
| Family (up to 6) | $21.99 | $19.99 |
Amazon doesn’t let us read its pricing pages, so Amazon Music Unlimited figures are approximate: roughly $11 a month with Prime, around $12 without, roughly $109 a year if you pay annually as a Prime member, and about $20 a month for a family plan covering six.
A note on those Amazon numbers: Amazon’s own newsroom and third-party trackers currently disagree, with secondary sources reporting a March 2026 increase that Amazon’s page doesn’t reflect. We round Amazon’s prices by policy and we’re flagging the disagreement rather than picking a side. Check the rate at signup.
The decision that actually saves money: family plans
Forget which service. If two or more people in your home pay for music separately, you are wasting roughly $100 a year.
Two individual Spotify subscriptions cost $25.98 a month. One family plan covering up to six people costs $21.99. The family plan is cheaper for two people, and it stays the same price for six:
Apple Music Family at $19.99 works out to about $3.33 per person across six people, against $11.99 each individually. That’s a 72% saving per head.
The catch is that family plans generally require everyone to live at the same address, and services do occasionally check. But for an actual household — partners, kids, parents — this is the single largest saving available in music streaming, and it dwarfs any difference between the three services.
If you’re on a family plan already, check who’s still paying separately. It’s a common find during a subscription audit.
The second decision: annual billing
Amazon is the only one of the three pushing an annual option hard, at roughly $109 a year for Prime members against about $132 paying monthly — a saving in the region of $23, or about two months free.
That’s a genuinely good deal if you’re certain you’ll still want it in ten months. Music subscriptions have unusually low churn, so for most people that’s a safe bet. But it’s also a full year of commitment to a service you may not have tested yet. Pay monthly for three months first; the $23 isn’t worth locking in a service you end up disliking.
Where they genuinely differ
Since the prices are within a dollar, pick on fit:
Spotify — discovery and everywhere-support. The best recommendation engine of the three, the widest device and app support, and the one your friends can actually open a shared playlist in. It also includes 15 hours a month of audiobooks, which is a real product other services don’t match — we work through that in audiobook subscriptions compared. If you’re paying for music and audiobooks separately, Spotify may replace both.
Apple Music — the cheapest headline price and lossless audio. A dollar less than Spotify individually, two less on family. Deep integration if your household runs on iPhones, and lossless and spatial audio at no extra charge. Weaker discovery, and a worse experience on Android and Windows. Worth checking Apple One (from $19.95) before subscribing separately — if you already pay Apple for storage or TV, bundling may cost less than the sum of the parts.
Amazon Music Unlimited — cheapest if you already have Prime. The catalogue is comparable and the price is the lowest of the three for Prime members. The app is the weakest of the three, and discovery is noticeably behind Spotify. It makes most sense if you’re already deep in Amazon’s ecosystem — Echo speakers especially, where it’s the path of least resistance.
Note the trap: Prime already includes a limited music tier, and it isn’t this. If you have Prime and think you already have full music streaming, you have a shuffle-limited subset. We cover what Prime actually includes in is Amazon Prime worth it.
The verdict
Two or more people in the house? A family plan, from whichever service you prefer. Apple Music Family at $19.99 is the cheapest, but the saving over Spotify’s $21.99 is $24 a year — pick on which app your household actually likes, not on that. This decision matters ten times more than the next four.
One person, already have Prime, mostly listen on an Echo? Amazon Music Unlimited, at roughly $11. Cheapest of the three for you, and the ecosystem fit is real. (This is the one that pays us — weigh it accordingly, and note we’re recommending against it for everyone else.)
One person who cares about discovering new music? Spotify at $12.99. The extra dollar over Apple buys a materially better recommendation engine, and the 15 hours of audiobooks are worth more than the dollar on their own.
Deep in Apple hardware? Apple Music at $11.99, after checking whether Apple One works out cheaper.
Student? $6.99 at either Spotify or Apple. Identical price; pick on preference.
Don’t pay at all if you mostly listen to podcasts, which are free everywhere, or if your listening is background noise you’d be equally happy getting from a free tier with ads. Spotify’s free tier is genuinely usable on a desktop. Paying $150 a year to remove ads from something you half-listen to while working is a worse deal than it feels like.
And whatever you pick, don’t pay for two. Three services at roughly $12 is $432 a year for near-identical catalogues. If you migrated and never cancelled the old one, that’s the most expensive mistake on this page.
Verified 10 August 2026. Spotify and Apple Music prices are exact, read from their own plans pages today. Amazon Music figures are approximate — Amazon’s pricing pages can’t be read by us, and its own newsroom currently disagrees with third-party reports of a March 2026 increase. Confirm at signup.