Hooking into the emerging trend of longer subscription trials, Spotify today announced a “Super Summer of Music” deal — three months of Spotify Premium subscription service for the one-month price of $9.99 in the U.S.
Spotify Premium adds unlimited commercial-free, on-demand music selection, and unlimited track downloads, to the ad-supported free listening that’s available to non-subscribers.
Music services are increasingly experimenting with longer trials to hook users on premium service. Satellite provider SiriusXM has found success with multi-month trials, and Google recently partnered with Sonos to offer six-month trials of its streaming-music plan to buyers of the Sonos wireless speaker systems. Beats Music gives long trials to AT&T customers, and Spotify’s recently-announced partnership with Sprint also pushes free months.
Long trials are a costly investment for the provider, but might pay off in allowing consumers to build “user equity” in the service — playlists and downloads, which are lost of the subscription ends.
Spotify’s summer deal must be invoked by June 15.