Google has finally launched its two new ad-free premium YouTube services in the UK: YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.
YouTube Music is a stand-alone music service that for £9.99 every month gives you a fully-functioning music app available on iOS, Android and via the web. YouTube Premium is Google’s all-in-one service that gives you access to the whole of YouTube ad-free and offline.
To help you understand what YouTube Music and YouTube Premium are and how they’re different from Spotify or Apple Music here’s our simple explainer.
What is YouTube Music?
This is an all-in-one music service. It contains Google’s huge library of official albums, artists and songs that you’ll find on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music but then combines that library with all the music and music videos that are currently on YouTube.
That means you can create a playlist that includes both studio recorded versions of songs and obscure remixes that can only be found on YouTube.
It’s available as an app on iOS or Android or even through a web player.
How much does YouTube Music cost?
YouTube Music is available either as a free ad-supported web player or as a premium ad-free version that lets you play music on any device and even download the music and videos that are in its library for offline playback.
Single membership: £9.99 per month
Family membership: £14.99 per month
A word of warning, if you try and sign up through your iPhone or iPad then you might see the price is a lot higher. This is because Apple actually charges an extra fee to let you subscribe through your iTunes account.
Should I swap from Spotify or Apple Music?
Honestly, it completely depends on how you listen to your music and what kind of music you listen to.
YouTube Music isn’t as compatible with smart speakers as its competition, which means you can only use it through Google Home.
It also doesn’t have the same level of playlist curation as both Spotify and Apple Music. It does have a radio feature however and will tailor the music it suggests based on your listening patterns.
If you find that the vast majority of the music you listen to are remixes, live covers or tracks that are sometimes hard to find then YouTube Music could be a really sensible alternative.
What is YouTube Premium?
YouTube Premium is the ultimate ad-free service that Google offers. Not only does it give you everything mentioned above but it then also lets you watch any video on YouTube (music or otherwise) without ads and download them to your iPhone or Android device.
You’ll also have exclusive access to YouTube Originals which are essentially Google’s version of Netflix Originals. These are high-budget TV shows that Google has commissioned and made exclusive to members.
To be absolutely clear though, YouTube Originals isn’t on anywhere near the scale that Netflix or Amazon are at. There are only a handful of shows and only slightly more comedy videos available so don’t sign up to it thinking you’ll have access to the kinds of TV shows that you would find on Netflix.
How much does YouTube Premium cost?
Unsurprisingly YouTube Premium isn’t cheap. That being said it’s only a small increase on top of YouTube Music.
Sadly there is no way to just have access to ad-free videos on YouTube without then also signing up to their music service.
Single membership: £11.99
Family membership: £17.99