Youtube is testing a cheaper ‘Premium Lite’ subscription that only rids you of ads

Google is testing a less expensive Youtube Premium subscription for those who are only interested in removing the ads from their watching experience. It’s called Youtube Premium Lite, and for now, it’s only appearing in Europe. According to The Verge, that would be Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Luxembourg, to be specific.

“In Nordics and Benelux (except for Iceland), we’re testing a new offering to give users even more choice: Premium Lite costs €6.99/month (or local equivalent per month) and it includes ad-free videos on YouTube,”

Youtube spokesperson to The Verge

Costing just €6.99 (Youtube Premium costs €11.99) it will not include any of the other features you’d find with the normal Premium subscription to the video platform. This means that you can’t download videos for offline viewing, or use background listening with your screen clicked off, for example. Basically, this feels like a pandemic or work-from-home subscription tier, if I’m honest. For anyone like me who never used these other features, to begin with, this is a much better deal than the regular sub.

In addition to getting ad-free videos across Youtube, you’ll also get the same experience with Youtube Kids, which is a relief. My son (and your children too if you have them) watch a good chunk of Youtube Kids, so losing the ad-free experience for the kiddos would be terrible. Luckily, Google decided to bundle this in, so I’m pleased. Unfortunately, you won’t get the same benefit with Youtube Music if you pay for Lite – bummer.

If you attempt to visit the Youtube Premium Lite splash page and you’re not in the aforementioned region, you will be met with a message stating that the offer is not available to you – of course. My hope is that this European test is a success and that Google rolls this Lite subscription out to all users in time – something it says it will do based on audience feedback. I think that this would be a fair price just to remove ads if you’re not getting the other benefits – yes, you’re still paying a large chunk for just one feature, but it’s arguably Youtube Premium’s most important feature.