Last year, Pandora rolled out Pandora Premium, a $10 per month on-demand subscription meant to provide a more direct alternative to services like Spotify and Apple Music. The radio-like nature of the service is still there, but if you feel like paying extra, you can get a lot more control over exactly what you’re listening to at any given time. Unfortunately for computer-bound users, the service was only available on the Pandora mobile app. Now that has changed as Pandora has rolled out Premium on the web, complete with all the features offered in the mobile apps.
Pandora says that Premium on the web has been the number one feature requested by its users, who can start using the new features on the service’s website immediately. Now Premium features like Search and Play, which offers customized search based on your listening history, and My Music, which lets you easily collect and catalog your favorite albums and artists, are available in a larger format that the streaming service refers to as “beautifully immersive.”
Given Pandora’s roots as a personalized internet radio service, it’s no surprise that it’s smart playlist features are pretty, well, smart. You can start a new playlist with one or two songs, tap the “Add Similar Songs” button, and pretty soon, you’ll have a playlist full of either familiar music, or new songs that could end up becoming your favorites.
When Pandora Premium debuted in March 2017, only users who requested an invite were able to sign up for the service and its 40 million-song catalog. In April, the service rolled out to everyone, so if you haven’t tried the service yet, you can simply go to Pandora Premium site and sign up with your credit card or PayPal account as your payment method. For mobile devices, you can access the upgrade option on Pandora Premium by going to the settings section of the Pandora app.
If you sign up for Premium through the Pandora website you will get 60 days of Pandora Premium for free. Upgrading or signing up via the mobile app will only get you 30 days of Pandora Premium for free.
As of last year, Pandora had 81 million active listeners but has fewer than 5 million people paying monthly for Pandora Plus. Expanding Premium’s availability by letting users listen on the web could potentially help it catch up to the subscription streaming competition of Spotify and the rapidly growing Apple Music.
Updated on February 15: Added details of Pandora Premium for the web.
