Average Spotify Premium user payment falls below $5 monthly for the first time

The average Spotify subscriber is paying less than $5 per month for access to 70 million tracks and hundreds of thousands of podcasts.

Given the direct correlation between what users pay and what artists and labels earn, $5 per month matters.

Using new stats from Spotify’s Q1 2021 report, MBW did the math:

• Spotify’s Premium average revenue per user (ARPU) in Q1 2021 stood at just $4.99, down 7% year-on-year or down 1% on a constant currency basis.

• In Spotify’s Q4 2020, the streamers ARPU was $5.16, while in Q1 2020), it was $5.36.

Why is Spotify’s average subscriber revenue falling?

Spotify blames “product mix”- which in this case means discount student, duo, and family plans – for the overall decline.

But while Spotify has started raising some prices slightly in the US, UK and EU, the dozens of territories that pay the least remain untouched.

Here is a global price breakdown from last summer.