New Apple prices for Music, TV+ and One subscription services

2022 looks set to be the year of tech price hikes. After a slump that left many product categories missing from store shelves in 2020 and 2021, companies are turning to price hikes to recoup losses, fight inflation, and cover rising costs. After pricing up iPhones, iPads and MacBooks, Apple is now also pricing up some of its online services, such as Apple Music and TV+.

Apple Music is now more expensive than Spotify

Apple Music, Apple’s music service, is going to be $1 more expensive, for starters in the US. This increase represents just 10% of the original subscription price, from $10 to $11. This makes Apple Music now more expensive than Spotify in the US. In Romania, however, the two services cost 24 and 25 lei a month respectively.

And Apple Music’s service for the family plan, which cost $15, now goes up to $17, an increase of 13.3%. The annual subscription also increases by 10%, from $100 to $109.

Apple justifies the price hike by increasing the cost of licensing music, but at the same time assures customers that artists will thus get more money from each fan play. There’s been a discussion for a few years around the fact that only very big international artists get decent money from music streams on such services, and Apple seems to be trying to move the discussion in that direction by suggesting that it pays better than other companies.

Apple TV+ and One also see price hikes

Apple TV+, a streaming service that currently does not exist in Romania, will be increased from $5 a month to $7, a 40% increase. The price for the annual subscription increases from $50 to $70. Apple justifies the price increase in this case by the increasingly rich content of the platform. At launch in 2019, the service had only a few series and movies, but now offers many award-winning series and movies, with multiple seasons, new documentaries and many other exclusive broadcasts, including live streams of American MLB baseball games. Next year it will also start broadcasting MLS soccer games.

With these price hikes, the Apple One subscription, which includes the two services, along with Arcade, iCloud+ and Fitness+ also go up. The basic one increases from $15 to $17 a month, the family one increases from $20 to $23, and the most expensive one from $30 to $33.

Apple will notify users by email 30 days before the price it charges on each individual subscription increases.