Amazon has launched their long-rumored new music streaming service. As I discovered last week, it’s called Amazon Music Unlimited and has several different pricing options. For those of you who are not Prime members the service is $9.99 per month. There is a family plan for $14.99 per month or $149 per year, which will be available soon, that grants access to 6 family members. These prices are equal to competing services like Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music. The pricing gets more interesting and competitive for Prime member who can pay either $7.99 per month or $79 per year, which comes out being about $6.58 per month. There is also an Echo-only plan for just $3.99 per month that grants access to the new music service from Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Amazon Tap devices only. Regardless of which payment option you select, the library of music accessible to you is exactly the same.
Amazon Music Unlimited offers “tens of millions of songs,” according to Amazon. More precisely, the service currently includes just over 27.3 million songs, which does not encompass all 41 million songs available for purchase in Amazon’s music store. So like with any music streaming service, you’re bound to find songs that are unavailable, but 27 million songs is on par with similarly priced competing services.
Amazon Prime Music is not being replaced by this new music service. Instead, you can think of it as an upgrade to Prime Music, which currently has just over 2 million songs in its library. Unfortunately, unlike the rumors suggested, Amazon Music Unlimited does not come with unlimited music uploads to your Amazon Drive account. Amazon Music Unlimited offers a 30 day free trial and is available now in the US. The service will be coming soon to the U.K., Germany, and Austria.
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Would be nice to know what is pricing for family prime member !
Amazon hasn’t said anything about a discounted family plan for Prime members. We’ll have to wait for that option to be available to see if there is a discount.
For those wondering, Amazon Music Unlimited, like prime Music, cannot be shared through Amazon’s “household” benefit sharing option.
Thanks !
What bitrate? Does it match Deezer, Tidal or Qobuz? Or does it even match Spotify Premium or Apple MUsic?
If its still 256kbps MP3 then no thanks. MP3 minimum is 320kbps.
256ACC from one of the Verge editors per Amazon
How does 256ACC compare to Spotify’s highest quality streaming and downloading bitrates?
sorry i meant AAC they are going to sound similar unless you have a good ear or good equipment the difference will come down to file size 256 is going to save you about a 1mb per 4 minute song (Spotify 320 ogg). You can look up OGG vs AAC and there are a lot of opinions out there.
Thanks for that info Luke.
Echo ONLY Plan?? If I have a SONOS will it be able to stream to it?
Echo ≠ SONOS, I’d say no.
No. The Echo-only plan only available on the Amazon Echo, the Echo Dot, and the Amazon Tap. No other devices, even if they’re Alexa-enabled like the fire TV and Fire TV Stick, can access the Echo-only plan.
27 million songs I bet you those album only songs like with Spotify, Apple Music and Play music are unavailable. You find this mostly with greatest hits and sound track albums. Really not worth it unless you are a Prime member and want a discount.
When will a music service have every song they sell also available to stream no grayed out or missing songs.
Any word on if this allows you to also upload your own music?
I would like to know this also. If it does I will use it
I’ve been a Spotify Premium subscriber for over 2 years. In that time I’ve created hundreds of playlists. Streaming and download quality of playback is excellent to my ears. It’s extremely rare that a track that I’m looking for is unavailable.
I’ll give MU a few weeks to work out the inevitible start-up kinks, then sign up for the 30-day trial to check it out.
But I can’t help but wonder why should I abandon Spotify for Amazon’s MU? Saving $2-3 per month isn’t enough of an incentive.
Any idea if MU will come with an import tool to allow me to easily move my hundreds of Spotify playlists to MU?
Any word on when the Fire TV will get back it’s music app?
The new Amazon Music app does not work on the Amazon Fire Phone? I had to side load it, because it is not available on the App Store, WTF Amazon?
10 dollars is a rip off for this as Spotify and Apple music both have a few million more songs than Unlimited at the same price. It would be madness anyone buying this at 10 dollars. The only reason to use Unlimited would be if one has Prime or wants the Echo only plan.
Anyone know how to turn off the annoying Amazon Music Unlimited “ads” on your Echo? If I asked to play a song in the past, and it wasn’t in my library or in Amazon Prime Music (the free version) it would just say “Here’s a sample…” then play part of the song… but now it annoyingly says “Here’s a sample, to listen to the full song you can sign up for Amazon Music Unlimited at any time by asking me” then playing part of the song… gets annoying fast when it keeps repeating the same ad over and over, especially when Alexa isn’t understanding the song you want to play in the first place.
How do I sign up for the $3.99/mo Echo Dot Unlimited Music Plan? I’ve waisted approximately 6 hours trying to find the correct link. Alexa’s instructions lead to a dead end.
How do I sign up for the $3.99/mo Echo Dot Unlimited Music Plan? When I ask for Alexa for unlimited music plan…she says I am already a primer music plan. I am not. Thanks Denis
I have an Echo and 2 Dots in a group. Can I play the $3.99 plan on the entire group or just on one of my 3 devices?
If one only, it’s of no interest