Pocket-lint - Spotify is a digital music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs, podcasts and videos from artists all over the world, like Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited. Spotify is immediately appealing because you can access content for free by simply signing up using an email address or by connecting with Facebook. If you're not keen on monthly subscription fees for Spotify Premium, or just want to dip your toe in and test it out, it's easy to get started and there's no commitment. You can find out the main differences between Spotify Free and Premium in our separate feature but as a quick summary, the free version is ad-supported, much like radio stations. The free version of Spotify can be accessed on PC, laptop and mobile phone, but the full service needs a Spotify Premium subscription.

Spotify plans
Pick your Premium
With unlimited skips, free downloads, offline listening, and plenty of other features, upgrading to the premium version has plenty of incentives. Not to mention, premium accounts are also completely ad-free. Instead, you need to shuffle an artist, album, genre, or playlist. Curated playlists and offline listening are also unavailable, as is Radio. You can also save tracks for offline listening , access Spotify Radio, and watch music videos and Spotify podcasts. It also comes with a free Hulu subscription. Just make sure you re-register as a student after a year , or Spotify will strip you of the Hulu membership and start charging you the full Premium price.
How does Spotify work?
Long gone are the days when music lovers had to buy records or CDs to listen to their tunes - or, even stream their songs through old copyright-challenged sites like Napster. And the service's popularity seems to be growing. In fact, the streaming company amassed some 96 million Spotify Premium subscribers as of the last quarter of , according to Statista.
Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. But what are the differences between the two and is it worth upgrading? Companies are paying Spotify to make you listen to ads every few tracks. Spotify makes less money per-play from ads than they do from Premium subscribers , so to encourage people to upgrade, the free tier is limited in certain ways. When using the desktop or web app with a free account, you can listen to any song, album, or playlist at any time in any order. These playlists include things like:.