Spotify Premium Members Can No Longer Pay Via Apple’s App Store

Spotify has started warning users paying for their Premium subscription via Apple’s iOS App Store that they will need to choose another billing method. As reported by Variety, the music streaming service has started sending emails to Premium subscribers to warn them that it’s no longer accepting payments via the App Store.

The emails say that subscribers will automatically switch to Spotify Free at the end of their last billing period. To keep their Premium benefits, they will need to resubscribe on spotify.com with another payment method, including a credit card or Paypal.

Because Apple takes a 30% cut on all in-app purchases on iOS (this commission rate on subscriptions drops to 15% after the first year), Spotify users were charged an extra $3/month if they decided to subscribe to Premium via the iOS App Store. Obviously, the convenience of using Apple’s billing system wasn’t worth it. “These actions will help ensure that we can continue to provide a consistent best-in-class subscription experience for all our users,” a Spotify spokesperson told Variety.

To protest against Apple’s cut on in-app purchases, Spotify had actually stopped accepting new subscribers to pay for Premium via Apple’s billing system back in May 2016. The music streaming service followed up in 2019 with a formal complaint against Apple with the European Commission.

Earlier this year, Spotify along with other companies once again urged the EU Commission to take action against Apple. Things may finally change once the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which is set to come into effect in spring 2024, finally pushes Apple to allow third-party app stores on iOS in Europe. In the meantime, Google has already started piloting user choice billing on its Android Play Store, and Spotify is one of the first Android apps to allow users to choose how they want to pay for their Premium subscription.