The best music streaming services have a lot in common: similar song libraries, familiar features, and a price of around $10 a month.

Prime Music is included free with Amazon Prime, Amazon’s paid subscription service that costs $15 per month or $139 per year. It has a library of 2 million songs.

Amazon Music Unlimited, with a far bigger library of songs and more features, costs $9 per month for Prime members (or $89 for an annual subscription). It’s $10 per month for non-Prime members. There’s a free three-month trial and a discounted family plan. You can get a special $5 rate if you sign up for the Single Device Plan via an eligible Amazon Echo device.

Anyone can access free, ad-supported playlists and stations by asking Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant to play music.

The deal isn’t as sweet as it used to be, but a lot of other services cost 99 cents more. And this is a solid option for streaming high-quality files.

Pros: Both are ad-free, on-demand services, and if you already have a Prime subscription, Amazon Music Unlimited is the best deal you can get for a really robust collection of content (though not by much). Unlimited has more than 90 million songs, curated playlists, podcasts, and personalized stations. That entire library can now be streamed in high definition, and over 7 million tracks are available in 24-bit Ultra HD. The service also has a large and growing library of spatial audio content mastered in Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio.

Cons: Amazon Music Unlimited doesn’t seem to be quite as effective in making recommendations as many competitors, Spotify in particular. And while Prime members don’t have to pay extra for the basic tier of Prime Music, its 2 million songs amount to a thin selection compared with what you get from other streaming services.

Individuals pay $10 per month; for families of up to six, the service costs $15. Apple Music also has a discounted rate of $5 for students. There’s no free tier, but you can get a one-month free trial or six months free if you’ve bought eligible AirPods, HomePod smart speakers, or Beats headphones.

You can use Siri to control Apple Music with a regular plan, but there’s also a cheaper “voice plan” for $5 per month. That lets you access any song or playlist using your voice—and only your voice. You don’t get to use the app any other way.

Who it’s best for: People who already have large iTunes libraries or who are otherwise committed to the Apple ecosystem.

Pros: Apple Music has a library of 90 million songs that can be accessed on Apple, Windows, and Android devices. After a recent update, the entire library is available in lossless hi-fi at no extra charge. Human curators create a variety of themed playlists that help users discover new music. Unsurprisingly, the Apple Music experience is particularly smooth on iPhones and Mac computers.

Apple will launch a classical music streaming service March 28 at no extra charge for Apple Music subscribers. The new service is based on Primephonic, a popular classical music streaming service that Apple bought recently.

The reason for the new service is that classical music doesn’t play well with a lot of music apps because the track titles and "artist" listings are formatted differently from most pop music. The new service will allow a listener to search for a particular version of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony by the name of the composer, the conductor, the orchestra, or the soloist, as well as pin it down by the catalog number.

Cons: The desktop app for Windows computers is a little clunky. But you can listen to Apple Music in a browser for a more streamlined experience.

Idagio is a classical music streaming service that costs around $10 per month (the subscription is billed in euros, so there might be minor currency fluctuations). Idagio also has a free ad-supported tier with 2 million songs, and students can get 50 percent off. There’s a free two-week trial period, so you can try the service before you commit.

For $30 per month, you get access to Idagio’s exclusive online concerts, which sometimes feature leading performers. (There’s also a substantial discount for an annual membership.)

If you want the high definition of Idagio’s Premium+ tier, you can save about $3 a month by signing up via a web browser instead of through an app store.

Pros: Idagio is built to suit the idiosyncrasies of the classical world. It can be hard to find your favorite recording of a beloved Rachmaninoff concerto on more mainstream services because of the complicated way tracks have to be named. On Idagio, the search tools handle the naming conventions of classical tracks with ease. You can also expect to find a bigger classical selection here.

Cons: Idagio doesn’t have any other genres, but for now, it’s is the best choice for classical music purists.

Pandora was designed for those who want tailored recommendations and the kind of hands-off listening experience you get with a live radio station. Pricing is slightly confusing. The streaming radio feature is free, but there are ads and a few limitations. For $5 per month, you get the option to pick which songs you listen to without ads, plus you get streaming radio ad-free.

The $10-per-month tier gets you access to the entire service ad-free. A $15 family plan is also available. Pandora offers free trial periods for the paid plans and discounts for students and members of the military. Subscribers also get some perks from Pandora’s parent company, SiriusXM.

However, the cheaper tier is a good choice for people who want a discount—especially the radio feature. You don’t need to scroll through lists of songs or do a lot of searches—you just sit back and listen to what the service picks for you.

Pros: It’s easy to get started. Tell Pandora which artist you want to hear and it creates a channel with selections from that artist and others with similar styles. You can tweak the channel to match your tastes.

Cons: Pandora’s maximum audio quality isn’t as high as that of some competitors. The company doesn’t advertise how many songs are in its library, which suggests that its offerings may be more limited than those of leading competitors.

Users can stream music free with ads via desktop and web apps. The Premium tier costs $10 per month for individuals, $13 for two people, or $16 for up to six users. It grants ad-free on-demand access to Spotify’s library of 80 million tracks and 4 million podcast titles. Students pay a discounted rate of $5 and get free access to Hulu (with commercials) and Showtime. A 30-day trial period is available.

Spotify has doubled down on podcasts as well. The service is host to a variety of exclusive content, particularly in the realm of podcasts.

Spotify combines a large library of popular songs with a series of robust playlists. These playlists are often geared toward specific activities and genres, helping people find music for specific situations, such as the gym or long car trips. Podcasts and other original programming are also available. If you’re a student who also wants a TV streaming service, bundling with Hulu for as little as $2 a month could save you money.

On a smartphone, users can stream playlists and stations free with ads, but on-demand song selection is limited to a small number of tracks, and you can skip only a certain number of songs per hour. You can’t connect Spotify directly from the Apple HomePod, though you can connect your phone to the smart speaker over Bluetooth and play Spotify that way.

There’s still no high-quality audio on the service, despite the company making an announcement about it in 2021. In a March 2023 interview, Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström told The Verge that Spotify HiFi “is still coming” but declined to give details about when.

Tidal starts at $10 per month for hi-res audio quality; $20 per month unlocks even higher fidelity “master quality” audio. Discounted plans for families, students, and members of the military are available. The service offers a free, ad-supported tier with lower audio quality, and a one-month trial of its paid services. The company says it has 90 million tracks and 450,000 videos.

Tidal offers both CD-quality and high-res audio (via HiFi Plus, its top-tier service). It also has a substantial library of spatial audio tracks in both Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio formats.

Tidal offers hi-res streaming with Tidal Connect, which allows you to bypass the Bluetooth connection from your phone and stream directly to compatible speakers, soundbars, and other home audio devices.

Tidal pays artists significantly more than most other streaming services, with some estimates suggesting that the platform offers almost four times as much per stream as Spotify.

Cons: The cost of $20 per month is steep, especially when lossless streaming doesn’t cost extra with the Amazon and Apple services. What’s more, you might not be able to hear the difference with the high-quality files if you don’t have excellent audio equipment. And even if you think high-quality audio files are worth the price of admission, it’s important to remember that these large files can use up limited cellular data plans pretty quickly if you’re listening on a phone.

YouTube Music is free with ads. YouTube Music Premium, which is ad-free, costs $10 per month for an individual or $15 per month for families. A free one-month trial is available. Discounts are available for students. People with a Google smart speaker can access free ad-supported playlists and stations without signing up by asking their device to play music.

Adding some potential confusion, there’s a separate service called YouTube Premium, which costs $12 per month (or more for a family plan). It includes the same music streaming service plus ad-free videos and some original video content.

What sets YouTube Music apart is the ability to upload up to 100,000 of your own audio files to stream from the cloud. You don’t have to pay anything to use this feature.

YouTube Music Premium gives you access to a library of 70 million songs, personalized playlists, and music videos. Location-based playlists will even suggest songs—think high-tempo music at the gym—at appropriate times.

There’s a major flaw to the free tier of YouTube Music. Unless you’re listening to tracks you uploaded yourself, you can’t lock your phone or switch to another app without the music stopping.

His conclusion is that Spotify is paying about $290,000 per month for Pub/Sub alone, although it’s possible that it received some discount, given that Google is getting more out of this deal than just a paying cloud customer.

Apparently music companies/bands all around the world are looking forward to investing in curated content that is delivered through their own music streaming applications to ensure a high revenue share.

Soundcloud also stands in the row of the world’s leading music streaming website. The website earns total revenue of about $250 million and it has total online subscribers of around 100,000 which have turned to reach its net value of $1 billion.

Let's look at streaming first. Spotify says that the average user listens to its product for 70 minutes per day. It streams at 160 kilobits per second.Per user, that means that it is streaming 160*60*70 = 672,000 kilobits per day = 84 MBytes per day.It says it has 5 million users (as of early September; probably more now).If they all listen for 70 minutes per day, that's 5,000,000 x 84MB per day = 420,000 GB per day of streamed data. And rising.

So assume around 1 million streams online at any one time, and divide our streamed data by 5. That gives us 84,000 GB per day streamed. (Yes, 84 terabytes per day.) Per month, multiply by 30.

If you look for streaming costs, you find that it's probably around $0.05 per GB (the link is to an analysis of Netflix, reckoned to be paying $0.03 per GB; but Netflix is big).

So that means that Spotify is spending $0.05*84,000*30, or about £126,000 per month on its streaming alone.

Next are the music licensing costs per track. These were reduced as of July 1 from 0.22p per track to 0.085p (= £0.00085) per track, a cut of roughly two-thirds.

You have 1m people listening to 24 tracks per day: that's 24m tracks per day, 720m tracks per month. That will cost 720m * £0.00085 = £600,000 per month.

Streaming costs: £126,000 per monthMusic streaming licence costs: £600,000 per monthHosting costs: £100,000 per month.

These are about ten times larger than the MCPS costs. In other words, at least £6m per month.

That might seem scary - but actually there's a clause in the MCPS/PRS licensing system that could let Spotify off that big per-track charge. My understanding from a long conversation with the MCPS/PRS is that the per-track charge only applies if your revenues are less than your streaming charges would be; otherwise, you pay 10% of your revenues.

The average song released in 2020 is about 3½ minutes long. At the lowest quality, Spotify songs only use 600 kilobytes or a little more than half a megabyte (MB). However, the dynamic range is terrible and beats are shallow.

Cranking quality up to high results in using up 4.2MB of data. Spotify Premium subscribers can unlock Very High streams (320 kbps), pushing each song's consumption to 8.4MB. Listening to a full 12-song album requires up to 50MB of data—or 100MB if you’re on Spotify Premium.

However, a simple one-hour commute twice per day over 22 workdays each month quickly adds up. On high quality, the typical commute uses more than 3GB of mobile data per month.

A full hour of streaming music can use upwards of 150 MB of data. That means a single hour of streaming per day can add up to over 6 GB of data usage just for streaming music.

Streaming Hours to Reach 1 GB: 92.5 hours

Streaming Hours to Reach 1 GB: 23.1 hours

Streaming Hours to Reach 1 GB: 13.8 hours

Streaming Hours to Reach 1 GB: 6.9 hours

In terms of data usage, 320 Kbps translates to approximately 2.40MB per minute of audio or 144MB per hour. So, streaming music for an entire 8-hour workday would chew through over 1GB of data.

Pandora Free: Wi-Fi streams music at 128 kpbs and will use approximately 58MB per hour.

Pandora Free: Mobile data streams music at 64 kpbs automatically and will use roughly 29MB per hour.

Pandora Plus or Premium: Wi-Fi or mobile data uses 192 Kbps automatically and will use approximately 86MB per hour.

Low (free & premium): Streams music at 24 kbps and will use approximately 11MB per hour.

Normal (free & premium): Streams music at 96 kbps and will use approximately 43MB per hour.

High (free & premium): Streams music at 160 kbps and will use approximately 72MB per hour

Very high (premium only): Streams music at 320 kbps and will use approximately 144MB per hou

HD: About 383MB per hour.

Super HD: About 1.68GB per hour.

Amazon says that its average bitrate for HD (lossless) files is 850kbps, and the average bitrate for Super HD is 3,730kbps.

256 kbps no matter how you listen, meaning you'd use approximately 115MB per hour.

It takes about 500 KB of data to stream one minute of music and there are 1 million KB in 1GB. So if you do the math (or if we do), that means you can stream approximately 33 hrs and 20 min of music with 1GB of data.