After several months of anticipation, YouTube has finally launched its Premium Lite offering in the United States. Essentially, it’s the cheaper tier of its Premium subscription in the US. Sure, it comes with a few caveats, but all of them are at half the price of the usual Premium subscription.
YouTube launches new ad-free Premium Lite plan at half the price of usual offering
YouTube’s Premium offering costs $7.99 per month, which is half the price of the usual YouTube Premium plan at $13.99 per month. With the Premium Lite subscription, you can watch regular YouTube without ads. However, it doesn’t include music content, including music videos and Shorts, which will still have advertisements. Additionally, the plan doesn’t support background play or offline downloads. If you want these features, you’ll need to stick with the $13.99 YouTube Premium subscription.
In the announcement post, YouTube also confirmed that Music and Premium have surpassed 125 million subscribers, a figure that includes trials as well.
This comes at a time when subscription prices across streaming platforms continue to rise. For example, Netflix recently increased subscription prices across several plans. As a result, YouTube is looking to offer a lower-cost option for users who want an ad-free experience without paying for additional features they may not need. Unfortunately, YouTube hasn’t shared any data on what percentage of people actually don’t use or need these features.
The bottom line is that YouTube’s Premium Lite is now available in the US as a pilot program and will soon expand to other test markets, including Thailand, Germany, and Australia. The company mentioned that it will expand “Premium Lite pilots to additional countries this year”. However, it didn’t specify which countries would be part of the program.
