It's official: Spotify is also getting on the bandwagon of the companies that have raised the prices of their services for this 2023. And for this reason, perhaps we are considering the alternatives to Spotify that are on the market.
Do you want to understand why Spotify raises prices and learn about alternatives that exist on the market? We advise you to read the following article if the answer is yes.
Why Spotify raises prices?: Financial Profitability, under analysis.
Last year they warned about it, but only now has this price increase become effective. And what is hidden behind this rise is a variable called Financial profit , which is a measure used to assess the economic and financial performance of an investment or company in terms of profits generated in relation to the resources invested.
In other words, it is the benefit that my company obtains discounting all the resources it needs to carry out its activity. (such as electricity, water, employee salaries, Social Security, etc.).
Although there are a multitude of KPIs or performance indicators that allow us to analyze the financial profitability of Spotify, we are going to focus on the main one: the Return on Investment (or ROI)
Return on investment measures the relationship between the profits obtained and the cost of the investment. It is expressed as a percentage and is calculated by dividing the net earnings by the cost of the investment and multiplying it by 100.
If we analyze Spotify's data, we see that currently its index is at -44.23% compared to last year. Which means basically, they lose money for being active.
Would Spotify have alternatives to be more profitable without raising prices?
To answer this question, we are going to play the game that has existed in economics since the origin of economic analysis as a science: keep the rest of the economic performance variables constant while we analyze one in particular.
And we will do it this way because I believe that few except the people who are in the sector have access to 100% of Spotify's operating costs to function and coming up as a savior by talking about this fact seems very daring to me.
Let's measure the profitability of Spotify like this formula:
And let's consider the main income as the one originating from advertising and from the Premium memberships that they sell us.
On the cost side, consider the costs of music licenses (because to offer songs, you have to pay the artists and record companies), the broadband and server infrastructures themselves to be able to work, the marketing campaigns to attract new users and loyalty to the current ones (which is not free, every X time you have to give something to your oldest users so that they do not leave) or the fight against piracy (which also costs money).
To increase profitability, Spotify has two paths that can go together or separately: either increase revenue, or reduce operating costs.
Let's assume, then, that they have done everything possible to keep costs down. For any company that, with the age and size of Spotify, we take for granted that this is how it is being done.
For the obligatory, the thing is to increase income. Which means putting more pressure on advertisers to pay more (which is not very desirable, since they can choose to stop advertising on your platform if you go too far), or transfer the price increase to the consumer (what happens now).
So answering the question: No, the price hike on Spotify is inevitable.
I don't care about all this… What alternatives to Spotify do I have?
If what you are looking for are alternatives to Spotify that exist on the market, either because you are not satisfied with the rise in prices or because you want to investigate other platforms, we recommend the following that we believe can be well adapted to your uses
YouTube Music: a familiar and easy-to-use app
Since the beginning of YouTube, many users uploaded songs to be able to listen to them from the application itself, of course without taking copyright into account.
This unexpected use by the YouTube community served to give Google the idea of ​​launching YouTube Music in 2018, designed to compete against other music streaming apps.
YouTube Music offers us a large music library with the vast majority of artists as well as all the recommendations that they offer us based on our preferences, as well as the possibility of playing audio and video with the screen off in the background.
In this app You do not have advertising associated with the account, and you have an offline mode that will allow you to download the songs so that you can enjoy them when you are without an Internet connection, as well as integrating into YouTube Premium.
Apple Music: Cupertino's alternative to Spotify
Being iPhone users, it is normal for us to know Apple Music, the music streaming service of the Cupertino company that has been operating since 2015.
This offers more or less the same as YouTube Music, such as the ability to listen to multiple artists by paying a monthly subscription or having an offline mode, but adds some unique features for users in the Apple world.
Specifically, I am talking about the sync with iTunes library, which allows us to combine our songs that we have with those that we are listening to in streaming, the online radio (with the presence of several own stations, as well as external ones) or the Apple Music T channelV, available for Apple TV.
Amazon Music: because you don't only have Prime to buy products
Amazon Music is Amazon's alternative to Spotify that offers several subscription levels to suit the needs of users.
While Amazon Prime subscribers have access to a limited catalog of music at no additional cost, those who actually decide to pay for an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription will have a wide variety of artists without restrictions.
As it happens with the other streaming services, it basically offers the same thing at the operational level of the application. The big difference occurs when we begin to carry out the integration with Alexa smart speakers or devices like FireTV, which will allow us to further extend the functionality of Amazon Music.
If you are a Prime user, you already have the trial by default to take a look at it and if not, you will have 30 days to try Music Unlimited at no cost to see if you like it.
TIDAL: a differential bet as an alternative to Spotify
While all the apps we've seen have similar things or revolve around other services from big tech companies, there's a non-big tech alternative to Spotify that offers a clear difference: TIDAL.
This service focuses on audio quality: it offers music in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format at a higher bit rate than other streaming services, providing a higher quality listening experience for audiophiles and hi-fi audio enthusiasts.
Furthermore, it works with codecs that are fully compatible with the most advanced HIFI equipment and audio systems, which makes the user experience massively superior to other streaming applications.
If you are an audio connoisseur and want to enjoy good streaming, we advise you to take a look at this application that will surely not disappoint you.
What is the best Spotify alternative out there?
As they say, it is always good that there are alternatives to Spotify on the market for consumers and here we have been able to show you 4 great candidates if you think you have to explore a new avenue. After that, it depends on your own profile as a consumer which is the one that best suits your needs and the ones that you think will be best satisfied.
Do you have speakers with Alexa at home? Perhaps Amazon is the best option for you. On the other hand, if you only use Apple-brand equipment, it is likely that Apple TV is the alternative to Spotify that you are looking for.
But if I have to focus on the technical side, I would say that TIDAL is the most different Spotify alternative out there. No other company gambles with high quality audio because it consumes a lot of bandwidth resources that cost a lot of money to maintain and it is deeply appreciated that any player in the market has decided to go into this particular niche.
Regardless of all this, we believe that any of these can offer you a good and differential user experience, each focusing on their strengths. You only have to try and discover which is the best for you, as a user.