Setting up Subscriptions

With Subscriptions, you can charge your audience for your show's content both on Spotify (audio and video) and on other listening platforms (audio only).

You need to have at least 2 published episodes and an audience of at least 100 Spotify users in the last 30 days in order to begin setting up Subscriptions.

Note: Setting up and managing Subscriptions is only available on Spotify for Creators web.

Subscriptions are currently available to creators and fans in the following markets:

If you're a listener looking to subscribe to a show, check out this article.

Setting up Subscriptions

1. Go to the Subscriptions tab
2. If you’ve met the eligibility criteria, you can enter your monthly price, select the type of content that you’re offering, and agree to the terms.
3. Set up your Stripe account. If you already have a Stripe account, you can use that or set up a new one.
4. Check the box next to the episodes you’d like to include in your subscription, then click Next.
5. Click Launch.

Managing subscription episodes

Once you’ve set up Subscriptions, you can set your existing and future episodes as subscription-only from your Episodes page or the Episode options page.

To mark a new episode as subscription only:

1. Create your episode as normal.
2. When you get to the Monetize step, toggle on Subscribers only.

You can also remove an episode from being subscriber only:

1. Find the Episodes page, then select the episode you want to manage.
2. Within the Episode options page, click the Monetize tab.
3. Find the Subscription section and click Edit.
4. Make it available to everyone.
5. Click Save.

Benefits

With subscriptions, you can offer your subscribers a number of different benefits.

You can change your benefits at any time.

Automatically remove ads

If you earn from ads, you can offer eligible members fewer Spotify-inserted ads.

Select Fewer ads as a subscription benefit and toggle “Automatically remove ads from all your episodes for subscribers.” This allows your fans to hear all your episodes without any Spotify for Creators-inserted ads on Spotify. Publish once to everyone, include your ad cue points, and we’ll automatically remove Spotify for Creators-inserted ads for your subscribers.

Earnings

Find your Subscriptions tab, then click Performance to see how many subscribers you have and how much you've earned. Earnings data is shown in USD. You keep 100% of your earnings, excluding payment processing fees.

Changing your subscription price

It’s possible to change the monthly price of your subscription, but if you have existing subscribers, we encourage you to think through how your change will impact them (for example, some subscribers may cancel if you decide to increase your price). Below, we’ll outline all of the steps to change your price.

From the Subscriptions tab:

1. Find the Manage tab and next to your current price, click on .
2. On the Edit price screen, input your new desired price.
   1. If you don’t have any existing subscribers, confirm your price change, and click Save. You can change your price as often as you like if you don’t have any subscribers.
   2. If you have existing subscribers, you need to make some choices about how you’d like your price change to affect them (continue reading). You can only change your price once every 90 days if you have subscribers.

Important info to consider before changing your price

If you’ve selected a lower price:

Any existing subscribers will be charged at the new lower price on their next billing date (they’ll receive an email notifying them of this change). Your checkout page updates immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, lower price. Confirm your price change and you’re all set.

If you’ve selected a higher price:

You will need to choose whether or not you want to apply the higher price to your existing subscribers.

1. If you choose to increase the price for new subscribers only:Any existing subscribers will continue to be charged at the original price moving forward, and they won’t be sent an email because your change will not affect their pricing. Your checkout page updates immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, higher price. Save your price change and you’re all set.
2. If you choose to increase the price for new and existing subscribers:Any existing subscribers will be sent an email notifying them of the price change and will have a 30-day window to take action before the new higher price goes into effect (described below). Your checkout page updates immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, higher price. Save your price change and you’re all set.
   1. Subscribers in the U.S. (except in NY state) will have 30 days to cancel their subscription if they don’t agree to the new price. Otherwise, they’ll be charged the new higher price automatically on their next billing date after the 30-day window.
   2. Subscribers outside of the U.S. (and users in NY state) will have 30 days to opt-in to the new price. If they don’t opt in during the 30-day window, they’ll continue to have access to subscriber-only content until the end of their billing cycle, but after that, their subscription will be automatically canceled.

If you’ve changed your price and now have different groups of legacy subscribers paying different prices, you can view and manage those groups and their pricing separately in the Manage section of the Subscriptions tab. You can maintain up to 3 legacy groups at a time.

Disabling Subscriptions

If you’d like to remove Subscriptions entirely:

1. Find the Subscriptions tab.
2. Select the Manage section.
3. Scroll down to Additional settings.
4. Click Disable next to Disable subscriptions.

All subscribers will continue to have access to subscriber only content and any benefits they have under their tier until the end of their billing cycle, but after that, their subscription will end.