Spotify Will Charge A Subscription Fee For The Podcast Service

Illustration (Image Credit: Heidi Fin / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Spotify has recently become a very popular streaming music service, but not because of that alone, its podcast service is also in great demand by the public today.

However, the company plans to make podcast services as paid as streaming music. This was seen when Spotify was conducting a survey to its subscribers regarding paid podcasts.

The survey features four different podcast subscription options ranging from US $ 2.99 to US $ 7.99 per month. Each package will provide a different level of access to exclusive podcast content on Spotify.

Later, lower priced packages will provide bonus interviews, higher tier packages will give users all exclusive episodes without any advertisements. It should be noted, this paid podcast package is different from the Spotify Premium subscription package.

This streaming music service based in Stockholm, Sweden is known to routinely send out surveys of this kind to measure interest in future products. However, it is not known when Spotify will implement a payment system for its podcast service.

"At Spotify, we routinely carry out a number of surveys in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of them eventually paved the way for us to provide a wider experience," Spotify said as quoted by Gizmodo, Monday, November 9.

If podcast subscription services do happen, Spotify will likely find a lot of subscribers. But also will face various protests from their users.

Even so, Spotify has invested heavily in podcasting over the past few years. In 2019, the music streaming giant acquired popular podcast producer Gimlet Media Inc as well as Anchor, a growing platform that helps people easily organize, create, and distribute their podcasts.