Five years after launching YouTube Premium in India, the company has announced a price hike for its premium memberships, with individual memberships increasing by 15% to Rs 149 per month from the previous Rs 129.
However, the biggest price hike is in the family membership category. YouTube Premium Family Membership, which started at Rs 189 per month and allowed users to share an account with five or more family members, now costs Rs 299, a 58.2% increase. Simply put, this option is only available if you have two or more members sharing.
According to YouTube’s website, which lists pricing categories, the student plan, which started at Rs 79 per month, now costs Rs 89 per month, a 12.65% increase. Prepaid plans have also increased prices accordingly.
YouTube Premium offers viewers an ad-free viewing experience, background play, offline downloads of YouTube videos, access to all YouTube Originals, and YouTube Music Premium is included with your YouTube Premium membership.
“We don’t make decisions like this lightly, and this update allows us to continue to improve Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube,” the company said.
Existing premium subscribers have begun receiving emails asking them to accept the new pricing, stating that if they don’t take any action by their next billing date in September, their subscriptions will end before the new pricing goes into effect starting with their October billing date.