Spotify review: the free tier streams almost everything, but Premium holds the keys

One app for nearly everything you hear

Spotify is a streaming app for music, podcasts and audiobooks. You put on an album, follow a show or start a book from the same library. My verdict: it is the default choice for good reason, and the free tier is a real way to listen, but anyone who wants offline playback or full control over what plays next will end up paying.

The size of the offer is the whole argument. The developer claims more than 100 million songs and 6 million podcast titles, plus a Premium audiobook catalog of more than 250,000 titles. With more than 1,000,000,000 installs on Google Play, it is also the service your friends are most likely to share playlists from, and that matters more than any one feature.

Finding something to play

Most of the app is built around discovery, and it attacks the problem from several sides. Daily mixes are put together from your own listening. Personalized recommendations nudge you toward artists you have not tried yet, and artist radio playlists keep a favorite's sound going without you picking every track. For browsing, the app sorts things into more than 40 genre and mood categories, from Workout and Sleep to Classical, Jazz and Kids & Family. It also has charts of top songs by genre, country and decade.

Search goes past titles and artist names. You can type a lyric and find the song, which answers the old problem of a chorus stuck in your head when you never caught the name. The app also offers specially made artist playlists and curated playlists, so a listener who never builds a playlist still gets a steady supply of music.

You can make your own playlists too, mixing new releases in with old favorites, and share them. Because so many people use the app, a shared playlist usually lands with someone who can play it straight away.

Podcasts and audiobooks

Podcasts are handled as a first-class part of the app. You subscribe to a show so new episodes come to you, build a library of the shows you follow, and save single episodes into playlists alongside music. That last feature suits anyone who likes to queue up an interview between albums on a long drive. The catalog includes exclusives as well as popular shows, which means some programs are only found here.

Audiobooks are the newer addition, and the terms are narrower. Premium Individual subscribers, and the managers of Duo and Family plans, get 15 hours of audiobook listening a month from the catalog of more than 250,000 titles. Fifteen hours covers a book or two for a casual reader. Someone who gets through several a month will hit the ceiling, and other people on a shared plan get no allowance at all.

Beyond the phone

Spotify runs on far more than a phone. The developer lists tablets, desktop computers, PlayStation, Chromecast, TVs and Wear OS watches, so the same library and playlists follow you from the couch to the car to a run.

The Wear OS side has some substance. You can play music and podcasts from the watch without your phone nearby, control playback on your phone or other compatible devices, and use tiles and complications to get to the app quickly. Downloading to the watch for offline play is Premium only, the same as on the phone, so the phone-free run really comes with a subscription.

What you get free and what you pay for

The free tier is not a demo. You can stream the music and podcast catalog, build and share playlists, follow shows and use the discovery features without paying. The trade-offs are ad breaks during albums and playlists, and no downloads. The developer also lists on-demand playback among the Premium benefits, which means free listeners should not expect full control over exactly what plays and when.

Premium takes the ads out of albums and playlists and adds offline downloads, on-demand playback and the monthly audiobook allowance. It comes in four plans: Individual, Duo, Family and Student. You are not locked into a contract and can cancel whenever you like, which is the fair way to sell a subscription that renews.

Who should look elsewhere

If you mostly listen underground, on flights or anywhere the signal drops, the free tier will let you down, since downloads cost money. That makes Spotify a subscription app in practice for commuters and travelers, and they should judge it on the Premium price, not on the free tier.

Heavy audiobook listeners should think twice as well. The 15-hour monthly cap and the rule that only the plan holder or manager gets it make the audiobook offer a bonus, not a replacement for a dedicated audiobook service.

For everyone else the case is simple. The free tier lets you learn what the app is like at no cost, the discovery tools are the heart of the offer, and Premium's four plans with no commitment make it easy to upgrade or walk away. It loses points because the features that turn a streaming app into one you can rely on, like offline play and choosing exactly what plays, are paid, and because audience measurement is on until you switch it off.