Some music streaming apps are free to use, others come with a monthly subscription but generous free trial periods. Here we round up the best options.
Whether you’re looking for music to help you keep fit, entertain the kids or enjoy some relaxing ‘me’ time, there's a music streaming service to fit any occasion. In fact, you’re spoilt for choice. Whoever you want to listen to should be available somewhere, from Madonna to Mozart and Billie Eilish to Billie Holiday.
But costs can add up, especially if you need multiple accounts at home. And if you want to stream on multiple devices – a smart speaker or download music to your phone – you’ll likely need to pay even more.
To help you keep costs low, here are the top ways to stream your favourite music for free.
Free trials of music streaming apps
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Most of the big streaming services will offer you a free trial as long as you’re signing up for the first time. This is usually for one month. But from time to time you might be able to find extended trials of up to three months. These deals come and go so you might need to search around for the latest offers or check a site like becleverwithyourcash.com.
If you’re happy to mix and match different services, you could even get up to a year of free trials. Here are our best picks.
Best free music streaming apps
You don’t have to pay extra to listen to music online. There are some free options with some of the major services, along with a number of online radio players. However there are restrictions, and you might not be able to choose which song you want to listen to. There’s also likely to be adverts interrupting your listening experience.
Here are the best free music streaming options:
How to cut the cost of streaming music
Pay for a year Some services allow you to pay upfront for a year, which will normally be something like 12 months for the price of 10. If you know you will absolutely keep listening to a single service then these can be worth it. But once you’re paid up you won’t get a refund.
Pick a family plan for your household Premium plans are great for an individual, but they are difficult to share - especially if more than one person wants to listen to something different at the same time. You can of course buy a membership each, but that gets very expensive.
Instead, all the major services offer a Family plan, giving you access to up to five or six accounts for one price, as long as you share an address with the other users.
The savings vary, with these plans costing between £15 and £18 a month:
- Apple (£14.99 a month)
- Amazon (£14.99)
- Deezer (£16.99 a month)
- Spotify (£16.99 a month)
- Tidal (£14.99 a month)
- Spotify also has a Duo plan, which as the name suggests is two accounts for a single price of £13.99.
Streaming vs downloading: which is cheaper?
Streaming: with streaming, you are listening live – so if your internet connection drops or you’re in a black spot, the service will stop working.
Also, you'll need to be careful if you're streaming from your mobile phone and you're not connected to wi-fi. Your data allowance can get eaten up quickly if you’re not careful and extra data is expensive.
Downloading: most apps let you download tracks to your phone. You store a copy of the song on your device which will only be temporary – you’ll need to connect to the internet again to keep listening, usually once every 30 days to ensure you still have an account.
If you frequently use your mobile phone downloading can prevent you from racking up a huge data bill by downloading tracks to your phone while you’re on wi-fi, and then turning off the app’s access to data within your phone’s settings.
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