YouTube’s latest revenue grab: A 27 percent price increase for family plans
Enlarge (credit: Jericho / Ron Amadeo)
Not content with doing $28.8 billion in revenue in 2021, YouTube has recently gone on the hunt for more revenue-generating strategies. So far, we've seen canceled experiments like saddling videos with up to 10 unskippable pre-roll ads and charging for 4K content. Now, the Google division has announced a price hike for YouTube Premium family plans.
As 9to5Google was the first to spot, the family plan is jumping over 27 percent in the US, from $17.99 to $22.99, with other regions also seeing price hikes. Instead of making an official announcement, Google is quietly emailing existing subscribers. So far, it does not seem like the single-person YouTube Premium price (still $11.99 per month) is going up. The family plan lets a user share ad-free YouTube Premium with up to five same-household family members for a discounted rate.
On iOS, all the prices are higher if you sign up through the App Store, which charges a 30 percent fee on every transaction. In Apple land, YouTube Premium's family plan was always $22.99, and now it's jumping up to $29.99 a month. You can avoid the Apple tax by just paying Google directly through the YouTube website.