Apple is quietly raising the price of its Apple Music Student plan again, but this time in the US, Canada and the UK.
The changes were first spotted by Twitter users (opens in a new tab) who noted the price increase for the US plan, which is now €5.99 per month. Going through the Canadian and UK stores, you'll see the same increases, which are now €5.99 and €5.99, respectively.
Follow the trends
The price increase seems to have occurred in the last few days. If you use the Wayback Machine to view the archived pages (opens in a new tab) of the Apple Music Store from June 21, you'll see the old price of €4.99. The same goes for Canadian and UK pages.
This recent move is not unexpected. Other countries have seen similar price increases. According to a report by MacRumors (opens in a new tab), other locations include Australia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, India, and Israel, to name a few. But in those countries, Apple took the time to warn everyone, sending out emails that some shared on Twitter (opens in a new tab).
As for the other plans, everything seems to be the same. The Apple Music Individual plan is still $9.99 per month in the US, for example. The same can be said for the Family and Voice plans, so it's not clear why only the student plan got the price increase.
Apple has yet to make an official statement or send an email explaining its decision. We asked the company if they could explain the change and perhaps reveal whether other countries would benefit from the same price increase. Unfortunately, Apple representatives never contacted us.
Analysis: looking for better deals
With this price increase, students can start looking for better deals with streaming services. For example, Spotify's Premium Student plan (Opens in a new tab) looks pretty good right now. For €4.99, students get access to Spotify Premium plus a double subscription to Hulu and Showtime.
Of course, Apple Music has better music thanks to its spatial audio feature, while Spotify has yet to release lossless audio. But there's more to Spotify than just music. In recent months, the platform has further increased support for podcasts and revealed that it is working on the introduction of audiobooks. Apple is trying to convince podcasters, but it's not clear if that will be enough to entice people to stick with the more expensive student plan. If you want to know if Spotify or Apple Music is better, TechRadar recently compared the two services.