Spotify restricts some features to free users in India: Details here

Spotify has restricted the free tier in India to boost the growth of its premium plans in India. Here's what you can do about it.

Published By: Om Gupta

Published: Oct 10, 2023, 04:14 PM IST

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Spotify has restricted some features that were earlier available to free users in India.
These features will not be available for Spotify-free users in India starting October 9.
These restrictions expanded the gap between the Spotify Premium and free plan.

Spotify has restricted some features that were earlier available to free users in India. Three features including repeat, manual shuffle and tapping back will not be available for Spotify free users in India starting October 9. This latest move from the music streaming platform is aimed at pushing users towards its Premium subscription. Restriction on these three features has further expanded the gap between the Spotify Premium and free plan, which was earlier limited only to ads and the ability to download songs. However, the platform has not imposed any restriction on the number of songs free users can play. Free users can still play any number of songs without access to above mentioned three features.

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Amarjit Singh Batra, Indian Managing Director of Spotify, has officially confirmed changes to the free plan of Spotify in a statement to My Smart Price. Batra also said that the company has no plans to increase subscription prices in India. The company has also planned to add more features to its Premium plan to further drive users from the free plan to the paid plan.

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In India, the majority of subscribers have opted for the ad-supported model on the music streaming app. Spotify said that India is one of the top five countries in terms of monthly active users for the service. However, it doesn’t fall under top markets in terms of subscribers to free users ratio.

What can you do about it?

If you are a free Spotify user and love the platform but don’t want to lose features that were earlier available to you, you can go for the Premium plan of Spotify or else you can also move to Jio Saavn or Wynk Music. You can also get a complimentary subscription to JioSaavn Pro with Jio plans starting at Rs 269 and going all the way up to Rs 789, depending on the data validity you want. Similarly, Airtel subscribers can also get a complimentary Wynk Premium subscription with their recharge plans.

Meanwhile, Spotify introduced Smart Shuffle in India in March, which suggests songs based on user’s tastes and song/playlist they are listening to. This aimed at giving better suggestions to users to add songs to a particular playlist.