YouTube Premium Family Plan gets a price hike

If you are a YouTube Premium Family Plan member, you may have received an email yesterday that starting November 21, 2022, the price on your plan will go from $17.99 a month to $22.99 a month. I received the email myself yesterday and immediately checked to see if others had gotten the same. It appears from the comments on Reddit and what XDA-Developers is reporting, that this email is only being sent to family plan subscribers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and Japan.

Understandably, this $5 price hike is angering many YouTube Premium subscribers as there haven’t been any substantial updates or perks added that would justify just an increase. To make matters worse, due to app store fees, YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. who subscribed through the Apple App Store will end up paying a whole $29.99 per month.

As far as we know, this change is not affecting individual accounts, only family ones. Still, YouTube Premium does offer an additional benefit beyond the ad-free YouTube experience, such as access for you and up to 5 family members to YouTube Music. It so happens that I pulled the plug on Spotify a couple of months ago and stuck to YouTube Music since I was technically paying for it anyway, so this decision, although not welcome, doesn’t hurt as much since I’m using the service even more now.

There is also the ad-free experience of YouTube, which I am not willing to give up. I just can’t go back to watching ads. This means that I would have to either re-evaluate if I really need the family plan or just buck up and pay what Google is asking for. According to the email, the new pricing will take effect on your next billing cycle starting on or after November 21st, so there’s still time to decide if sticking with the YouTube Premium Family plan is the best decision.