This means there’s a choice to make and also a selection of plans for Unlimited users to choose from. Here we’ll explain them all so you can see the difference between Prime and Unlimited tiers.
As mentioned earlier, Music HD has now been made free for Unlimited users effectively making it just a part of that service. It means that you get much higher quality audio with ‘HD’ (CD quality) or ‘Ultra HD’ with up to 10x the bitrate of songs streamed via the standard Music service – a classic 320kbps.
If you have a good enough internet connection, a device that supports high-quality audio as well as headphones or speakers with a large enough dynamic range, you’ll be listening to Hi-Res Audio. Just note that only nine million tracks are available in Ultra HD.
Naturally, you can also download songs and albums to your phone so they can be played offline.
This is where it can get a little confusing, so we’ve put together this handy table – the prices shown are per month.
Those are the monthly prices but as we’ve said, you can pay annually if you are a Prime member, which makes it cheaper. A Prime subscription costs £79.99/US$139 a year which means Prime Music can cost as little as £6.67/$11.58 per month.
The main limitation of the Individual plan is that members of a household all have to share the same playlists and library etc. If you want your own ‘account’ which contains only the music and playlists you like, then you’ll need a Family plan which costs £14.99/$14.99pm. It allows you to stream on up to six devices at the same time.
Students (who are enrolled at an accredited college or university) can get Music Unlimited for a discounted price of £4.99pm in the UK.
Here’s what it looks like on an iPhone:
The apps do exactly what you’d expect: you can search for songs, create your own playlists, listen to tracks on demand and download them to your device so you can listen without an internet connection. All of this is with ad-free playback.
Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.
