Apple Increases Apple Music, Apple One, and AppleCare+ Prices

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Originally published at: Apple Increases Apple Music, Apple One, and AppleCare+ Prices - TidBITS

At 9to5Mac, Chance Miller writes:

Apple has raised the price of Apple Music today in the United States and other countries. Starting today, Apple Music’s Individual plan now costs $11.99 per month, up from $10.99.

Apple has also increased the price of select Apple One bundles.

In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said: “As a result of rising licensing costs, Apple Music is increasing its subscription price beginning today.”

Apple last raised Apple Music prices almost 4 years ago, blaming increased licensing costs then as well (see “Apple Raises the Price of Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple One,” 24 October 2022). However, during the previous price increase, Apple told 9to5Mac that artists and songwriters would earn more per stream; no such comment was made this time.

For Apple Music, the new monthly pricing plans are:

  • Individual: $11.99 ($1 increase, or 9%)
  • Family: $19.99 ($3 increase, or 18%)
  • Student: $6.99 ($1 increase, or 17%)

For the Apple One bundle that includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and iCloud+ (along with Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ in the Premier plan), the monthly plans now cost:

  • Individual: $19.95 (unchanged)
  • Family: $27.95 ($2 increase, or 8%)
  • Premier: $39.95 ($2 increase, or 5%)

The winners here are those who subscribe to the Apple One Individual plan, whose price remains unchanged at $19.95. For everyone else, the attractiveness of Apple One still comes down to what you actually use; see “Do You Use It? Apple Services See Widely Varying Popularity” (4 December 2023) for insight into how TidBITS readers view Apple’s services.

These Apple Music price increases aren’t entirely surprising, given how prices have risen sharply in recent years. It’s a little hard to see Apple as suffering from increased licensing costs over the past four years, given the massive revenue generated by the company’s Services segment—a whopping $61 billion in the first half of 2026 alone. But Apple is in business to make money, so if licensing costs are threatening the 77% gross margins enjoyed by Services (see “Apple Propelled to Record Q1 2026 Financials by iPhone and Services,” 30 January 2026), clearly prices must go up.

Separately, 9to5Mac’s Marcus Mendes wrote that Apple has also increased the prices of its AppleCare+ plans by $0.50 per month or $5 per year. Apple gave no explanation for these increases, but given that AppleCare+ repairs may involve memory and storage, it’s plausible that they’re related to the rising component costs responsible for driving up Mac and iPad prices (see “Apple Raises Prices for Many Products,” 26 June 2026).

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Just reminding people that you can also look at annual plans as an alternative for savings. For example, the Apple TV annual plan is $99 ($8.25 a month rather than $13) and the annual Apple Music plan is also $120 ($10 a month rather than $12).

(Edited to correct Apple TV annual rate.)

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A good point—Apple hides the annual Individual plan (I couldn’t find any mention of it on the Apple Music page), but I do see it in the Available Plans screen in Settings > Your Name > Subscriptions > Apple Music. I can confirm that it’s $119 there. The Apple TV plan appears to be $99 or $8.25 per month.

Monday, 20 Jul 2026 18:22:37
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Unfortunately, there are no annual plans for AppleOne - they are monthly only.

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Fortunately, there are streaming alternatives that are not only competitive with or less expensive than Apple but that also compensate artists at considerably higher rates.

After using Spotify for around 15 years my wife and I switched to Qobuz a year ago. (We demoed Apple Music along with other major streaming services. Apple’s user features and more importantly to us its dismally low artist payment range were deal-killers.) Qobuz music is available between Lossless FLAC 24-bit up to 192 kHz with all plans. We opted for MP3 quality because we mainly stream via our iPhones and our computer while using earbuds and Bluetooth speakers.

Qobuz Studio plans are priced as follows:

Single $12.99/Monthly $129.96/Annually ($10.83 per month)

Duo $17.99/Monthly $179.88/Annually ($14.99 per month) 2 accounts at same physical address

Family $21.90/Monthly $179.99/Annually ($14.99 per month) Up to 6 accounts at same address

There are various online sources that purport to detail the artist payment ranges for the major streaming services. The following figures come from Factually. There are more granular per stream figures available at the linked website.

Payment ranges per 1,000 streams (2025-2026 Summaries):

Apple $7-$10

Qobuz $13-$22

Spotify $3-$5

Making the move from Spotify was made much easier thanks to Soundiiz which is available gratis thru Qobuz. After a couple of transitional months while our wide-ranging musical preferences were absorbed by Qobuz we found that we didn’t miss Spotify one bit. Our only regret is that we didn’t make the switch sooner. . .

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Does Qobuz have a similar sized music catalog in the genres you like compared to Spotify? Is there anything—music or non-music—offered by Spotify that you miss?

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Spotify and Qobuz have a similar number of tracks which is around 100 million. But many Spotify tracks are non-musical audiobooks and podcast episodes. Qobuz caters to “audiophiles” who appreciate higher-quality music files. It also has more “obscure” artists for people who want to explore newer artists and non-mainstream genres.

There are various websites that can provide more info about the differences between Spotify and Qobuz. Start searching with a basic Spotify vs. Qobuz? search term and go from there. . . (We switched to Kagi.com for our Internet searches and it has replaced Startpage (Google) because of its much superior results that are ad-free with zero user-data collecting/tracking.)

During the 30-day Qobuz free demo period you can use Soundiiz to copy over your Spotify data, which will get you started much faster when testing the Qobuz offerings. If you need more time you can do a Qobuz month-to-month plan until you are satisfied that Qobuz will work for you. You can keep your Spotify account until you decide to switch (or not).

I think that sound-quality and certain specific features aside, the major streaming services have more in common than people might expect. Whether Qobuz can replace Spotify for you depends on the kinds of music you enjoy and how you use the streaming service.

We don’t miss anything after switching. The more you use the new service the faster you will get the most out of it. We are definitely much happier spending our money with a company that treats musical artists more fairly and that is more aligned with our political and social priorities.

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Believe I paid $99 for the annual TV plan.

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Agree, Qobuz is IMO much better than Spotify in a lot of ways, both technically or otherwise (eg. payouts: Apple Music payouts are pretty good, Qobuz typically best, Spotify typically worst).

The catalogues are similar in size between all services these days, so that shouldn’t really be a factor in your decision, though Qobuz is more feature rich and of course offers integrations with other services like the, well known by music fanatics, Roon – a paid-for music data service that offers the best info out there; at a price. ;-)

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You’re correct. It is $99year – thanks for the correction. I fixed my post.

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I’m pretty cynical about how money flows in the music business due to experience in the concert and event industry. So while payment rates aren’t a make-or-break aspect of a music streamer for me, this thread has made me interested in doing some research into how money flows from streamers to musicians and composers. I seem to recall that the payment system is, typical for anything entertainment related, complex and convoluted with several layers (with every layer taking a cut, of course) separating artists from the payments they generate from streams.

Anyway, I bet something that hasn’t changed is that touring and selling non-music merchandise is the most lucrative activity for a lot of musicians.

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The relative importance of touring vs recording has changed quite a lot. When I started to see concerts around 1980, I’d often get floor tickets within a dozen rows of the stage in major arenas to see big, internationally famous bands for $20 to $30, and I have some ticket stubs to prove it. Similar seats routinely go for several thousand dollars now, and even back-row, upper-deck, nose-bleed seats can be $200.

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You have good reasons to be cynical. . . Which is why I think that music consumers who care about the artists should preface their purchases decisions on how well the artists profit in the end.

Both Apple and Spotify employ a “market-centric” or pro rata payment model.

All subscription revenue is pooled together. The platform then allocates a portion of this pool to rights holders (labels/distributors) based on their total share of all streams across the entire platform.

This favors the most popular artists globally, as they command the largest percentage of the total stream pool.

Qobuz uses a premium/audiophile model which focuses on a high-ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) strategy to sustain higher payouts.

By avoiding a free ad-supported tier and implementing premium pricing for high-resolution audio, Qobuz ensures a higher revenue base per single stream.

Qobuz is one of the few platforms to have its average payout rate officially validated by an independent audit, providing more clarity than the industry-standard estimates used for Apple Music.

Apple’s payouts only appear to be “pretty good” in comparison to the streaming industry as a whole. Qobuz pays roughly 3 times what Apple pays and up to 6 times more than Spotify.

There are other variables that can affect artist payments like Spotify paying significantly less for its “free” ad-supported subscription tier. Spotify also doesn’t pay artists with fewer than 1,000 streams within a 12 month period. Many independent or smaller artists receive little or nothing after the rightsholders i.e. record labels, distributors, publishers, and collecting societies take their cut.

Qobuz looks really good in comparison to Apple and Spotify but arguably it could do better. . . While doing my research on the streaming industry I came across this artist/music consumer’s perspective. (Apple and Qobuz are featured in the blog post.)

PLEASE Stop Evaluating Streaming Services Over How Much They Pay Per Stream

More food for thought. . .

Sources: Portions of this post were copied from verified online sources.

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@mojo

Thanks for your posts about Qobuz. I’m digging around to learn more about it. So based on your experience—and please note that I’m not trying to troll you or attack your observations—what do you think about these comments I’ve run across?

  • Qobuz is best suited for people who are primarily into jazz, classical, or Top 40 pop music
  • Many artists don’t have their full back catalog available
  • Major labels are well represented on Qobuz but independent and regional (both USA and non-USA) labels have either a minimal presence or none at all
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I do not have an opinion about any of those comments. . .

I have very eclectic musical tastes and at 72 years old I still seek out new artists and genres. (I discovered Public Enemy while in my late 50s thanks to the “End Of Watch” film soundtrack. . . And yes, I realize that I was really tardy to that party. Better late than never :wink: )

But I also indulge myself by listening to the music of my youth like 60s-70s folk, rock, etc. Americana/roots, Indian classical and much much more. I recall some missing tracks but it didn’t deter me at all. Sometimes you have to endure a tiny bit of pain while honoring your ethics LOL.

If you intend to keep going down your current path regarding switching to Qobuz I suggest asking your questions using an AI search service (AI Answer Engines Are Worth Trying). I am partial to Kagi.com and it has a free demo for up to 100 searches with basic AI assistance.

Frankly, If I was you I would just try Qobuz for at least a month and make up your own mind. It doesn’t cost a thing and it is the best way to find out for yourself whether it is the streaming service that will float your cork.

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Thanks again for taking the time to write your responses. I was using your thoughts to augment gen-AI and search site responses because, as Qobuz says on its website, there is no replacement for human experience. Also, you seem to be very enthusiastic about the service so I was interested in your personal views.

:-)

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To switch to the yearly plan for Apple Music on iOS, you must already have an active individual subscription. Go to Settings > [Your Name] > Subscriptions > Apple Music and tap “See all plans”

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