PSA: Spotify Premium - Watch Out

Do you use Spotify Premium? Are you currently getting the student rate of $5/month? Then this is something that concerns you.

I’ve been a paying customer of Spotify for 13 months now. The credit card I had on file was about to expire (the desktop app never let me forget this) and I finally updated it the other day. That’s when I noticed my bill had doubled.

Going back through my credit card statements, I realized that this was, luckily, the only month I had been billed more than I originally agreed to. I emailed Spotify about this (they got back very quickly) and they shed some light on the whole situation. Apparently, the student rate is only good for 12 months at a time and can be renewed. That part makes sense. At the end of the 12 months, you are supposed to be notified that your rate will increase if you do not go into your settings and declare that you are still a student.

I was never notified.

Instead, I started getting secretly billed a new rate. Sure, it’s in the Terms and Conditions, but anyone that cites the Terms as a way to secretly bill you more is a shady character.

Spotify also refused to refund me the $5 I was over charged. Yes, it was in the Terms, but I never got an email and it’s never fun to see that a subscription service is suddenly charging you more than you thought.

Thankfully this only happened once, so I’m not upset about it - more so glad that I caught it early.

If you’re currently a student and a paying customer of Spotify, please keep an eye on your bill and subscription status. I don’t want this to happen to you as well.