Spotify goes after college students with half-price subscription offer

By Trevor Mogg March 26, 2014

spotify goes after college students with half price subscription offer — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Spotify is now offering US-based students the chance to sign up to its Premium service for the half the usual cost as the music streaming service seeks to grow its user base and fight off competition from similar outfits.

Announced this week, the special deal means those in school need only pay $5 a month instead of the usual $10, an offer Spotify hopes will be attractive enough to tempt users into switching from its free service or simply bring in new ones dissatisfied with rival offerings.

Spotify’s free version may of course be perfectly adequate for many students reluctant to fork out any money on music streaming, though the $5 deal will banish ads and allow for offline listening. For those with finely tuned ears, better sound quality is also part of the package.

The Sweden-based company launched its service in the US in 2011. Growth has been relatively slow in the country, where it’s currently the fourth most popular music streaming service, sitting behind Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Apple’s iTunes Radio, which launched just six months ago

Cross-platform Spotify has been around since 2008 and is now available in more than 50 countries. Its 25 million active users and 6 million subscribers have access to a catalog of around 20 million tracks, with various levels of service offered depending on payment and device used.

This week’s student-based offer comes two years after a similar Spotify deal launched in the UK, while in the US rival service Rdio has been tempting students with a half-price subscription offer for the past six months.

To learn more about Spotify’s 50-percent-off deal, check out the service’s dedicated webpage here. Full terms and conditions can be found here.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Audio / Video

What is hi-res audio, and how can you experience it right now?

Dlyan Wireless Headphones

High-resolution audio, hi-res audio, or even HD audio -- whatever you decide to call it (for the record, the industry prefers "hi-res audio"), it's a catch-all term that describes digital audio that goes above and beyond the level of sound quality you can expect from a garden-variety MP3 file and even CDs. It was once strictly the domain of audiophiles, but now that major streaming music services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz have embraced it, almost everyone can take advantage of what hi-res has to offer.

But what exactly is hi-res audio? What equipment do you need to listen to it? Where can you download or stream it? And does it actually sound better? We've got the answers.
What does the term 'hi-res audio' mean?

Music

How to download music from Spotify for offline listening

How to download music and podcasts from Spotify: The downloads folder.

If you're a Spotify Premium user paying that premium Spotify fee, chances are you've taken at least some time curating playlists, liking songs, and using the platform's easy-to-use (and recently revamped) user interface to discover new and old music.

But sometimes all that music or your favorite podcasts aren't available if you find yourself without an internet connection to stream them from — like on a long plane ride or weekend camping trip in the sticks. That's where Spotify's offline listening feature comes in handy, allowing you to download playlists, albums, and podcasts through its desktop and mobile apps so you can still rock out while you're off the grid.

Audio / Video

How to switch from Spotify to Apple Music

Spotify and Apple Music transfer on a smartphone.

Spotify is the world's most popular music streaming service for a reason. It has a massive catalog of music and podcasts, is full of cool music discovery and sharing features, and is really easy to use.
However, with its recent price increase and the fact that it still hasn't joined most of its peers in offering a hi-res audio quality option, you may be considering jumping ship for its closest competitor, Apple Music, which counts lossless hi-res tracks, mind-bending spatial audio, Dolby Atmos Music tracks, and a catalog that rivals Spotify's among the many attractive reasons to switch.

But there's one problem: you’ve spent a lot of time creating playlists and marking songs and albums as your favorites in Spotify. Is it worth the switch? Will all that hard work be lost in translation?