Spotify is arguably the most popular streaming service in the world. It has a massive library of music as well as a sizable library of podcasts. In this Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium breakdown, we’re going to see if the paid version is worth the monthly fee, or if you’re better off bearing through the ads to save money. You may even discover some features of Spotify along the way.
Editor’s note: This Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium article was updated on October 1, 2020, to include links to relevant information and to address an FAQ about Spotify promotions.
Pandora is considered to be one of the main competitors of Spotify, and it provides basically the same features and maybe even a bigger database of tracks and podcasts. The main difference between Spotify and Pandora is that the interface of the latter is probably a little easier. Over the years I gathered few similar pages, so I decided to share them with you. Spotify Statistics: Stats of your playlists and most favourite artists, songs and genres, all in nice designe complete with charts. Shuffle Guru: Something like music dashboard. It shows song you are just playing (and its cover), music controller.
Breaker is free to download but offers a $5 a month subscription to remove in-app advertisements. Breaker also lets podcast owners charge for premium episodes within the app. The Podcast App. Spotify Stations is a brand new app from Spotify which provides radio-like music streaming. It's available on iOS and Android and can be used with free and premium accounts. Overall, Stations.
Related: Best music streaming services
The listening experience with Free Spotify is unpleasant
Spotify Free and Premium Spotify may look similar at first, but extended functionality varies greatly.
There are some key functional differences between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium, particularly with the mobile interface. With the free mobile version, you can only skip six tracks per hour, whereas with Premium, you can skip as many as you’d like. Skip limits can put a damper on things when you repeatedly aren’t in the mood for certain randomized songs, but sure it’s a forgivable inconvenience.
Spotify Premium let’s you skip tracks endlessly, the free version does not
Another drawback to Free Spotify on mobile: you can’t select specific songs for playback. Rather, you can select an album or a playlist and shuffle the songs in it. This can get annoying when you have an earworm and just need to listen to that particular song. With Premium, you can listen to that song over and over to your little heart’s content.
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There is a caveat with Free Spotify, however; you can select songs for playback with unlimited skips, so long as you are listening to them from one of Spotify’s 15 curated playlists under “Made for You” on the “Home” page. These include popular editorial playlists, such as “RapCaviar” and “Alternative R&B,” and playlists algorithmically tailored to your listening preferences such as “Discover Weekly,” “Daily Mix,” and “Release Radar.” The songs on these playlists change frequently. If there’s a blue shuffle icon next to the playlist title, you may only shuffle songs.
Get ready for annoying ads with Free Spotify
The absolute worst thing about Free Spotify is how frequently ads interrupt playback. The advertisements are incredibly annoying, are surely designed to be that way. Many of them feature the most irritating noises you could imagine, such as traffic horns overlaid with a voice saying things like, “Is this annoying? If you buy Premium, you won’t have to listen to this anymore.” I’ll give them credit, because this tactic of being obnoxious works pretty well: paying for Spotify Premium is almost worth it for the sole purpose of removing these ads.
Listen offline with Spotify Premium
Depending on how much you pay for data, it might be a good idea to save your favorite tunes for offline listening.
With Spotify Premium, you can download an unlimited number of tracks for offline listening. This is great for long flights or if you want to turn off your data while away from home. With Free Spotify, you aren’t able to download any music, so you may be spending money in the form of data usage rather than a Premium subscription.
On the desktop Spotify app, there are fewer discrepancies between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. For example, on the desktop app you can select any specific song you want with unlimited skips regardless of if you have Spotify Premium or not. However, you are still subjected to ads on Free Spotify with the desktop app, and you cannot download music for offline listening on your computer unless you have Spotify Premium.
A glitch to Spotify Free affords Premium features
In August 2020, there was a glitch with Free Spotify that allowed for unlimited skips, specific song selection, and ad-free listening on both the mobile and desktop versions of the streaming service. This glitch made it almost identical to Spotify Premium, minus the ability to download music for offline listening. I reached out to a Spotify customer service rep, who told me, “To my knowledge we have ads and limited skips on the Free version.” This glitch surely will not last forever, though, so I’m going to have to crown the winner of best listening experience to Spotify Premium.
Winner: Spotify PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Discovery features are identical
Spotify Discover and Release Radar update every Monday to introduce new songs to its users.
One of the best things about Spotify is the way it promotes discovery of new music. This is apparent in its algorithmically produced playlists, designed to suggest styles of music that align with your listening history. The “Discover Weekly” and “Daily Mix” playlists are updated frequently with new suggestions. Perhaps you really dislike a recommended song or artist, you can press a button telling it to avoid a certain type of music or to blacklist that artist from your profile. The “Release Radar” playlist churns out new releases from artists you follow and updates weekly.
One of Spotify’s best features is available to Free and Premium users.
Spotify has a large variety of genres, moods, and other categories under the Browse tab, and here you can listen to its editorial playlists to discover new music. It will also recommend editorial playlists based on your listening activity, and it will algorithmically create “Radio” playlists for every song, artist, album, and playlist.
When you create a new playlist, the Spotify algorithm suggests songs for you based on the title of your playlist as well as the songs you’ve already put into it. Regardless of if you’ve paid for Spotify Premium, these discovery features are available and very helpful.
Winner: DrawFree or paid, enjoy the same social features
Spotify for desktop looks the same no matter what version you subscribe to.
Music has always been a social art form, but things have changed quite a bit since the days my dad would buy the latest Neil Young record on vinyl and sit around the turntable with his friends. Of course, people still get together to listen to music nowadays—though, perhaps not so much in 2020. There’s something exciting about sharing the social benefits of music with others, even when you’re trapped at home. Spotify uses several different tools on its platform to encourage music sharing, and you don’t need to buy Premium to access any of them.
Enjoy collaborative playlists on Spotify
To create collaborative playlists, press the three-dot symbol at the top-right of your screen (mobile), or next to the playlist title (desktop), and select “Collaborative Playlist.” Then, by share the playlist link with your friends. This will let them add and remove songs to and from it. Anybody with the link may do so, and it’s private unless someone holds the link. Collaborative playlists are great for when you and your roommates are throwing a party, or you’re planning a road trip with friends. Heck, they’re even good for when you just want to share some songs with someone regularly.
In a similar vein, if you have a Premium Family subscription or a Premium Duo subscription, Spotify will algorithmically create either a “Family Mix” or “Duo Mix” of songs based on the listening history of all the subscribed members. This isn’t technically a social feature because these playlists are created by Spotify and not the users themselves, so I’m not going to count its absence against Free Spotify.
Peek at what your friends are rocking out to
If you use Facebook, you can link your Spotify account to your Facebook account, making it easy for your Facebook friends to find your profile on Spotify by name or through the Find Friends button on the desktop app. You can search for your friends’ Spotify usernames; browse and add their playlists to your library; view their recent listening history; and, on the desktop Spotify app, view their active listening history.
This is a great way to discover new music and gain an idea of what types of music your friends are listening to. If it creeps you out that people can look through your playlists or see what you’re actively listening to, you can make your playlists private and disable the active listening feed. All of these features are available whether or not you pay for Premium.
Winner: DrawSome music may be unavailable if you don’t pay for Premium
Free Spotify pays artists less per steam than Spotify Premium does. In response to this discrepancy, Spotify allows artists to set up a paywall for the first two weeks after a release. If an artist chooses this option, their release will only be available to Premium users until the two weeks have gone by. If it’s important to you to have access to all the latest releases, this may be a feature that sways you to pay for Spotify Premium. Additionally, if you value the amount of money your favorite artists are getting paid, Premium is superior in that department. The following chart depicts the average amount Spotify pays artists per stream.
Winner: PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Sound quality is higher with Premium
While there is no high-resolution option for Spotify users, and Spotify only supports AAC and Ogg Vorbis, lossy file formats, there are still key differences in sound quality between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium. With Free Spotify, the maximum bitrate you can stream at is 128kbps on the desktop app and 160kbps on the mobile app, whereas Spotify Premium affords you 320kbps streaming on both desktop and mobile. In essence, this means that Spotify Premium’s music contains more data points and therefore more detail to its sound.
Spotify Premium has higher quality than Free Spotify, but it doesn’t have a HiFi setting. If you’re looking for a high fidelity streaming service, try Tidal HiFi.
Winner: Spotify PremiumRelated: Tidal vs SpotifyThere are different priced memberships for Premium, but Free is free
Spotify offers four different types of Premium subscriptions, and some of them are really great deals. First, there is the Spotify Premium Individual subscription, which is $9.99/month. This allows access to all the Premium features such as no ad interruptions, on-demand playback, and downloading tracks for offline listening. If you’re a full-time student at a university or college, you should be eligible for the Premium Student subscription, which is $4.99/month. Not only does this afford you all the same abilities of Spotify Premium, but, if you are a student in the United States, it also includes a subscription to SHOWTIME and the ad-supported version of Hulu.
If you want to share a Premium account with your live-in partner, you can get Premium Duo. It costs $12.99/month and both you and your partner will have your own separate accounts. Along with all the regular Premium features, you have the option to join “Duo Mix.” You and your partner can both go to the “Duo Mix” on your “Made for You” page on the mobile app, click the three dots, and select “Join Duo Mix.” Spotify will algorithmically design a playlist to be appealing to both you and your partner. You can change the mix to be chill or upbeat, depending on the mood, and you can choose to remove any explicit songs from the mix. Each song has the profile picture of either you or your partner next to it, so you can see whose listening activity the song was generated from.
Spotify offers a family plan, a plan for couples, and a student rate.
Spotify Premium Family is very similar to Premium Duo, as all members must live at the same address. Premium Family, though, can support up to six separate accounts, and costs $14.99/month. Parents can choose to block explicit music for specific members, and children can use their Premium Family account on the Spotify Kids app. In addition to these features and all the regular Premium features, your family can listen to a generated “Family Mix” which works just like the “Duo Mix.”
All of these subscription options are very cool, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, free is free. If the absence of needing to fork over a portion of your paycheck every month is enough motivation to deal with the ads, lack of features, and inconvenience of Free Spotify, then Free Spotify is going to be the option for you.
Winner: Spotify FreeWhat are some lesser known Spotify features?
Spotify constantly and consistently comes out with new features. For example, in 2017, it created a “Time Capsule” playlist for all of its 16-years-old-and-up users, Premium or not. These playlists were personalized based on their extensive listening history. It was created to be the kind of playlist users would have listened to in their teenage years. Pretty cool, huh? Another recent creation of Spotify’s was the “Pet Playlist,” which users could personalize by inputting the species of their pet as well as ranking their pet’s behaviors across a few different spectra. This data was then mixed with the genres and styles of music the user enjoys to create a playlist for users and their furry best friends.
Express yourself on Tinder and Instagram
Spotify has partnerships with many other apps, including Instagram and Tinder. You can share the name, artist, and album artwork of a song to your Instagram story with the click of a button on Spotify. If you link your Spotify account to Tinder, you can publish your frequently played songs on your Tinder profile, you know, to make sure you attract people with as impeccable music taste as yourself. And, of course, you can connect your account with Facebook to find friends more easily.
Spotify plays nicely with Android Auto and has its own Carplay mode
Carplay simplifies the interface, so distractions are lessened. Spotify apk download play store.
When you connect your smartphone to your car by Bluetooth, Spotify will automatically go into Carplay mode or Android Auto mode, depending on your OS and if your car is compatible with these features. These features reduce the amount of information displayed on the screen, making it safer to navigate the app while in the car. (We don’t recommend using the app while actively driving, though. Have your passenger do it.) They also make for easy integration with the navigation apps Google Maps and Waze. Similarly, many music-listening devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus, offer Spotify integration for easy access.
That’s a wrap: End-of-year statistics
My personal favorite Spotify feature is “Spotify Wrapped.” In December of every year, Spotify creates an animation of statistics for each user, including but not limited to the song they listened to most over the past year, how many total minutes they spent listening to music over the past year, the podcast the user listened to most often, and the countries all the artists they listened to are based out of. In addition to this, Wrapped shows users the statistics generalized by region and in the world as a whole.
In December of 2019, Spotify even had “Wrapped” stats for the whole decade. “Wrapped” is available for both Free and Premium users, but Premium users get additional personalized data including the number of artists they discovered that year as well as their top new artist from that year. Because of this one small detail, Spotify Premium wins this section, but, all Spotify users get a lot of really cool features.
Winner: Spotify PremiumFree Spotify vs Spotify Premium: Which one is better?
And the winner is Spotify Premium! It’s pretty clear that Premium has more features than Free Spotify, but whether or not you’re willing to pay for a subscription depends on you, of course. If you can get a student, family, or duo membership, Spotify Premium isn’t too pricey, but if you’re still on the fence, Spotify has free month-long trials of Premium. Until next time, happy listening.
Next: Apple Music review
Can I get a free Google Nest Mini with Spotify Premium?
Not anymore! In September, Spotify teamed up with Google to give away free Google Nest Minis to all Spotify Premium subscribers, new and old. This promotion has since ended, but keep an eye on Spotify's website because it does promotions like this fairly frequently.
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Spotify, a well-known music streaming service, offers millions of songs, albums, and podcasts for users. Everyone can easily get instant access to it with free subscription, though you may encounter boring ads, low quality music or other limit. Yet, you can upgrade to the premium account, pursuing a high audio quality and better listening experience. Besides, it also allows you to download the songs for offline playback. Spotify offline mode allows you to download music but it can only be played within its own app. So, is there any tool that can download Spotify songs offline without premium, or even play on any device? That's what we are going to discuss here.
To get the most of Spotify, the best solution is to find out an ideal Spotify downlaoder to download songs from Spotify, no matter you are a free or paid user. Luckily, there are many solutions on the market supposed to work. In order to save your time, we've made an ultimate list of the top 7 best Spotify downloaders 2020 to download Spotify music easily.
No.1. TunesKit Music Converter for Spotify (Windows & Mac)
TunesKit Spotify Music Converter is a professional music downloader and manager for Spotify. It's one of the best Spotify song downloaders to help any Spotify user. Both free and premium users can download tracks, albums, artists and playlists from Spotify for offline playback on any device and MP3 player.
Besides, it's able to save the downloaded Spotify songs as MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC and other popular formats without quality loss. Only with one click, you can download any ads-free Spotify track with original ID3 tags preserved at 5X speed. You can also edit the output music quality by setting audio codec, bit rate, sample rate according to your requirements.
Pros:
1. Easy-to-use lossless Spotify music downloader;
2. Directly download Spotify music on Mac & PC in one click; 3. Save Spotify songs in MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV, M4A, M4B; 4. Keep ID3 tags; 5. No extra hardware required, very easy to use.
Cons:
1. Only English UI available.
How to use it:
1. Download and install TunesKit on your PC or Mac;
2. Launch it and add your target Spotify songs; 3. Choose output format and start to download Spotify.
No.2. KeepVid Music (Windows & Mac)
KeepVid Music, also known as iMusic, is a complete streaming music downloader. It works not only with Spotify, but also downloads playlists from up to 3,000+ music sites like Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, Google Play Music, and so on. It's one of the most comprehensive Spotify music managers, allowing you to download, manage and share Spotify playlists in high quality.
In addition to Spotify playlist downloader, it can be served as a music recorder to record any song play through your computer. If you have any need to transfer media between iDevices without iTunes, KeepVid Music will immediately get it done for you.
Pros:
1. Support direct downloading as well as recording;
2. Download Spotify and other 3000+ streaming music sources; 3. Transfer downloaded Spotify songs to iOS devices easily; 4. Fix ID3 tags.
Cons:
https://againbrown976.weebly.com/spotify-screen-saver-mac-apple-tv.html. 1. Support MP3 output only.
How to use it:
1. Install the software on your computer;
2. Copy the Spotify playlist link into KeepVid; 3. Choose MP3 as output format and click Download button to start. No.3. Spotiload (former Spotify VK Downloader) (Windows & Mac)
Formerly known as Spotify VK Downloader, its name was now changed to Spotiload. It's actually a chrome extension which uses vk.com social network to download any Spotify playlist and save them in mp3 files.
It can be easily found in extension section on Chrome. Once installed, it will require you create and log into a vk.com account. Then simply go to Spotify and browse the playlists you want to download. From the Spotiload toolbox, you can select the tracks and click the 'Download' button to get the songs.
Pros:
1. Easy to install;
2. Free of charge.
Cons:
1. Using vk.com might be illegal and not allowed in some countries;
2. Only download Spotify songs available on vk.com; 3. Unstable when downloading Spotify songs with multiple artists; 4. Output music quality is lossy.
How to use it:
1. Install the chrome extension to your browser;
2. Find the songs on Spotify you'd like to download; 3. Click the Download button to start downloading. No.4. Mp3fy.com Online Spotify Downloader (Windows & Mac)
Mp3fy.com is an ultimate online Spotify music downloading solution. It supports 1000+ streaming sites, like Spotify, YouTube, Vemeo, Facebook, Soundcloud, Vine, etc. It's able to download and convert Spotify playlists to MP3 format in just seconds. Aside from Spotify, you can also use it to download video content without limit.
Pros:
1. Free;
2. Very clean and easy to handle; 3. Support downloading both music and video.
Cons:
1. Support MP3 output only;
2. Music quality is lossy; 3. So many ads.
How to use it:
1. Go to its official site on the browser;
2. Paste the link of Spotify song you want to convert; 3. Click the Convert button and then press the Download button after the link is validated. No.5. TunesKit Audio Capture (Windows & Mac)
TunesKit Audio Capture is an all-in-one audio recording software developed by TunesKit Studio. It is able to assist Spotify users easily record any music track and playlist with high quality for free. Instead of downloading, it uses recording technology to record the Spotify songs. And then it saves them to common MP3, WAV, AAC, M4A, M4B for playback on any device offline.
As a multi-track recording tool, TunesKit Audio Capture lets you capture multiple Spotify tracks at the same time. The ID3 tags of Spotify music will be retained and corrected automatically after recording. You can also edit the audio quality and ID tags in the way you like. Except for Spotify, it supports recording any other sound on your computer as well.
Pros:
1. Support recording all sounds play on PC/Mac;
2. Save Spotify in most popular formats; 3. Keep and fix ID3 tags.
Cons:
1. Output quality is not 100% lossless.
How to use it:
1. Install the app on your Mac or PC computer;
2. Insert the Spotify app to TunesKit interface; 3. It will start downloading the song while you're playing it on Spotify.
No.6. DRmare Spotify Music Converter (Windows & Mac)
This is a desktop program, well-designed to download Spotify songs, playlists and podcasts, etc. No matter you're a free or premium subscriber, you can use DRmare tool to download Spotify for listening on any device. It is a professional music converter to convert Spotify to MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, etc. easily and quickly. The converted files will preserve all the ID3 tags and metadata info. Plus, it works on both Mac OS and Windows platforms.
Pros:
1. Easy to download Spotify;
2. Support multiple output audio formats.
Cons:
1. It's paid and trial version cannot download the whole length of the song.
How to use it:
Best Free Alternatives To Spotify
1. Download and install DRmare on your computer;
2. Open the program and import Spotify songs to it; 3. Select output format and start the conversion. No.7. Spotify & Deezer Music Downloader (Windows & Mac)Spotify & Deezer Music Downloader is a Google Chrome extension. It enables users to download Spotify tracks to MP3 in one click. You can search and install the add-on on your Chrome. Once installed, a green icon will appear to the top right corner of your browser. Click it and then Spotify web player will be opened automatically. You're required to sign in the account. Then open a playlist and you can see a green 'Download' button at the right side of each song. Click it and the song will be downloaded to your computer in MP3 format.
Pros:
1. Free and easy to install;
2. Support downloading Spotify, Deezer, Soundcloud and many other music resources. ![]()
Cons:
1. Not stable and sometimes it failed to download;
2. The download process is slow if your network is not good; 3. The output sound quality is average.
How to use it:
1. Install the extension on the Chrome;
2. Find the song you want to download; 3. Click the Download button to download it. Comparison: Best Spotify Downloader 2020
Now you can read the following chart about the comparison among these top-rated music downloaders for Spotify. Hope you can easily make your decision then.
Summary & Suggestion
Now you may have a clear understanding of all those 7 best Spotify downloaders. Generally speaking, if you are looking for a free solution to download Spotify playlist online, you can pick Mp3fy.com. It will download and convert any Spotify playlist/song to MP3 for you.
But if you care much about the downloading speed and music quality, TunesKit Spotify Music Converter could be the best choice. It works directly to download all Spotify playlists and tracks at 5X speedy conversion with original quality kept. DRmare Spotify Converter can also be a nice option.
Keepvid Music is a priority option if you are going to download not only Spotify songs, but also other popular sites like YouTube. Last but not least, be careful when using Spotify VK Downloader as it might be illegal in your country. If you're not sure about your country law, you'd better not use it. Or if you known any other efficient Spotify song downloader, please don't be hesitate to leave your comments below.
Best App Similar To Spotify That Is Free Shipping
Now what's next? Download TunesKit Spotify Music Converter for free and have a try!
Is Spotify Safe To Use
Adam Gorden is an experienced writer of TunesKit who is obsessed about tech, movie and software.
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