After testing the service in Ireland and Canada last month, Spotify has officially launched Audiobooks+ in the US, Europe, Australia, and other countries. Available to Spotify Premium members, as well as individual Family and Duo users, the add-on adds an additional 15 hours of listening to the 15 hours available to premium subscribers.
If you’re an individual Spotify Premium subscriber, this is a fairly straightforward upgrade. By paying an additional $12 per month for Audiobooks+ (on top of the $12 per month you pay for Premium), you’ll get 15 additional hours of audiobook listening, on top of the 15 free hours already included in the plan.
Here’s how it works if you have the $20 Premium Family plan or the $17 Premium Duo plan. First of all, although these plans include 15 hours of free audiobooks, only the plan manager has access to them. But with Audiobooks+, other plan members can now pay for access. All they need to do is ask their plan manager to add the Audiobooks+ option, again for $12 per month, and they will receive 15 hours of listening. The plan manager can also purchase a one-time 10-hour refill for $13.00 (for themselves or other plan members) to finish the book.
Over the past year or two, Spotify has been gradually expanding its audiobook lineup, recently adding Bloomsbury book publishing to the mix. The company also offers an audiobook-only subscription plan that costs $10 per month for 15 hours of listening. However, depending on the audiobook, it may be cheaper to just buy it than to top up your Spotify account if you want to listen to multiple titles within a month. In addition to the United States, Ireland, and Canada, Audiobooks+ is now available in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.
