Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
If you’re a new or existing user of YouTube Premium and Music Premium, which let you watch and listen ad-free, you might be able to save up to $36 a year with Google’s new annual plans, as 9to5Google reports. From now until Sunday, January 23rd, users can receive an extra discount with the promo rate, but the new annual plans cost less than the current monthly rate either way.
YouTube Premium’s new annual plan is currently selling for $107.99, roughly $36 less than you’d pay for a year at its current monthly price of $143.88.
For YouTube Premium Music subscribers, the annual rate is currently $89.99, but will be priced at $119.88 after Sunday — still nearly a $30 savings over paying monthly.
Users are still able to sign-up for a month-to-month subscription, too — $11.99 for YouTube Premium and $9.99 for YouTube Music Premium, the same price as they were before. Both services offer a 7-day free trial period for new users before the user is charged for the full month.
Though the annual subscription offers a one and done option for YouTube Music Premium users, it might not make sense if you’re grandfathered into an earlier, cheaper plan. You’d be paying 11 cents more for an annual plan if you’re currently paying $9.99 a month for YouTube Music, and it’s an even worse deal if you still have the old $7.99 plan, 9to5Google reports.
With an annual plan, you have to pay for either service upfront, and YouTube says it won’t automatically renew at the end of one year. For existing subscribers, you may need to change your plan to qualify: It’s not available for those on family and student plans, and existing individual users on monthly subscriptions have to cancel their current plan before they can purchase the annual service. The plans are also only available in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Thailand, India and Japan.