Music streaming price shootout in South Africa — YouTube beats Apple Music, Spotify

YouTube Music is the cheapest ad-free major music streaming service available in South Africa.

MyBroadband compared music streaming services, including Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music and Premium, Amazon Music, Tidal, Pandora, and Deezer, on pricing and content.

At R59.99 for individuals and R89.99 for a family plan, YouTube Music offered the best value for money, with its library of more than 100 million tracks on par with rivals.

Students can sign up to YouTube Music for R29.99 and access the same content. However, it should be noted that YouTube Music limits personal libraries to 100,000 tracks.

For R12 more per month, South Africans can also sign up for YouTube Premium, giving them access to the entire YouTube Music library and removing ads from the video platform.

Spotify is the second-most affordable streaming service available to South African residents at R64.99 per month for the individual Premium plan.

Like YouTube Music, it offers an extensive library with over 100 million tracks. However, it doesn’t implement any personal library limits.

Students can sign up for Spotify Premium for R34.99, and the company sells a family plan that allows up to six devices to use a single subscription for R99.99 per month.

Apple Music and Tidal tie in terms of pricing, at R69.99 per month. However, Tidal limits personal libraries to 10,000 tracks, while Apple’s service lets users choose and download up to 100,000 tracks.

Both have a library comprising over 100 million tracks and offer similar pricing for their student and family plans.

Deezer claims to have the most extensive library of the lot, with more than 120 million tracks. However, it is also one of the most expensive at R79.99 per month.

South African students can get Deezer for R35.90 per month, and the company sells a family plan for R130 monthly.

The family plan essentially includes six individual accounts, allowing six users to stream music simultaneously.

Like Tidal, Deezer limits personal music libraries to 10,000 tracks.

At $10.99 (R208) per month, Amazon Music Unlimited is the most expensive streaming service available in South Africa.

The ecommerce giant’s streaming service provides access to over 100 million songs.

Amazon also sells a Music Unlimited student plan for $5.99 (R113) per month and a family plan for $16.99 (R321) monthly.

The major benefit of Amazon Music Unlimited is that it does not implement any personal library limits.

Subscribers to Amazon’s Prime service, which includes the Prime Video streaming service, can get the subscription for a discounted $9.99 (R189) per month.

The table below compares six major music streaming services on pricing, personal library limits, and the total number of tracks available in their catalogues.