you may save serious money by taking advantage of the family plans offered by popular streaming services. The catch is you need to get all your family or group of friends in agreement on which service to use. Here’s a point-by-point breakdown to get you on the same page.

The Good News: Pricing Isn’t a Big Deal

Whether you’re splitting the cost of a family plan or footing the bill yourself, the goal is always to save money. But, as you’ll learn, everybody has a preferred music service. And some services offer special features or exclusive content, which may (in rare cases) be the deciding factor in which family plan you join.

Here’s the good news; most music streaming services charge between $15 and $17 a month for their respective family plans. They’re all the same basic price, plus or minus a dollar. So, you don’t need to worry too much about pricing—instead, you can focus on finding a service that makes everybody happy.

Before we move forward, let’s list all the major music streaming services, plus the price of their respective family plans:

Obviously, those who are on a tight budget may be drawn to Pandora or Amazon Music Unlimited, which offer the most affordable family plans. But these services are just $1 or $2 cheaper than the competition. Even if you’re paying the entire monthly bill yourself, it’s probably best to choose a service that everyone enjoys. That’s the only way to guarantee that they’ll actually use it.

Note that Amazon Prime Music is free with a Prime membership. Prime Music is pretty limited, but it’s certainly an option. you may share it with one other adult and four children (or teens) by setting up anAmazon Household. I suggest that iPhone users look into anApple One Familysubscription, as it includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud storage, and Apple Arcade.

Familiarity Is the Key to Choosing a Family Plan

Switching to a new music service is a pain in the neck, especially if you’ve spent years curating playlists and feeding a platform your music preferences. So, the “best music service family plan” is usually the app that everybody’s already got on their phone.

Of course, you may be an Apple Music household with an outspoken Tidal roommate. Or, maybe your family is split between Spotify and Pandora. In these situations, your options are pretty straightforward; convince everybody to get on the same page, or tell the outliers to make their own family plan. The good news is that you don’tneedto add six people to your family plan to save money. Even just two or three people will save you a few bucks each month. If you may’t convince everybody to get on board with one service, then create a family plan with the people who actually want to join it.

There are some exceptions to this rule. The people in your home may not be so picky—they might be happy with any service, especially if it includes cool features or exclusive content. And if you’re creating this family plan for your teenagers or young children, you don’tneedto conform to their preferences (although it’s best to pick a service that everyone will actually use).

Which Music Streaming Platform Has the Best Features?

Every music platform has special features and exclusive content. These perks may, in some situations, help you decide which music family plan to join. But to reiterate, your family and friends may not care about this stuff, especially if they’d prefer to stick with a certain platform.

Spotifyis probably the most fully-featured music streaming service. Along with its extensive library of content, it hosts a ton of podcasts (including many exclusives) and regularly introduces strange new features, such asits AI DJ. It also offers parental controls for children’s accounts and allows you to build playlists with other users (not just your family members). There are only two major downsides to Spotify—it lacks CD-quality streaming, and some artists (such as Joni Mitchell) are absent from the platform because of its business practices.

Apple Music’slibrary rivals that of Spotify, especially when you factor in theApple Music Classicalapp. And, more notably, Apple Music offers both lossless and spatial audio. The platform will also gain collaborative playlists in late 2023, and thanks to the Apple Music desktop app, it’s easy to save local audio files to the Apple Music app on your phone. Windows and Android owners can use Apple Music, but realistically, it offers a much better experience on iPhone and Mac. (I strongly suggest that iPhone users look into theApple One Familyplan, which includes Apple Music.)

Families that are knee-deep in the Amazon ecosystem will appreciateAmazon Music Unlimited, which offers CD-quality audio and integrates nicely with Alexa and Fire TV. But those who spend most of their time on YouTube may prefer aYouTube Music family plan, as it works well with Google Assistant and includes a YouTube Premium membership for each of your family members (in other words, no more ads on YouTube).

As forTidalandDeezer—well, their whole thing is lossless sound quality. These platforms also offer a selection of podcasts, and because they pay artists a much higher rate than the competition, you don’t need to worry about artists leaving the platform. AndPandorais the ultimate music streaming app for those who prefer a radio-like experience.

Whatever you choose though, the tunes will definitely sound better know you’re saving a few bucks and making music available to everyone in your family so they can customize their playlists and listening experience to their heart’s desire.