South African streaming music showdown

Google’s YouTube Music is the most affordable individual subscription service in South Africa for streaming music, despite a price increase from R59.99 to R64.99 since the last comparison TechCentral published two years ago.

The cost of accessing unlimited music streaming services in South Africa has remained relatively stable over time, with the largest increase over a two-year period being no more than R5. And prices locally remain far below the developed world.

TechCentral’s latest analysis looks at pricing for the individual plans of five streamers: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and Tidal. Pricing for international markets, including the US, the UK, Germany and Kenya, are given to give a broader perspective about the cost of music streaming around the world.

Interesting to note is the apparent convergence of South Africa’s pricing around the R69.99/month level. Spotify increased its pricing from R64.99 to R69.99 just this week. Apple Music and Tidal have remained unchanged at R69.99 since 2023 and Deezer has been R79.99 for just as long, too.

As the most expensive music streaming service in South Africa, Deezer offers “master quality authenticated” (MQA) and lossless Flac audio. These standards allow for audio files to be sent over the internet with minimal if any audio quality loss. Deezer markets itself as the first to introduce “high-fidelity sound” to the music streaming market, perhaps justifying its slightly higher monthly cost.

But Apple Music, at R69.99/month, also offers lossless compression, with users having the option to stream at a lower 24-bit/48kHz audio quality or high-resolution 24-bit/192kHz. Norwegian streamer Tidal offers similar technical capability, also using Flac for lossless compression. Spotify’s highest streaming quality is 320kbit/s and YouTube Music’s is 256kbit/s.

Emerging markets

Spotify is the most popular streaming service in the world, owing largely to its large library of music, podcasts and audiobooks – and the fact that it helped pioneer the segment.

All the other streaming services in TechCentral’s comparison claim to have over 100 million tracks in their catalogue, but Spotify was the first to boast such as large library and was able to grow its market share because of it.

Read: Spotify to hike prices in South Africa

“We are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with more than 696 million users, including 276 million subscribers in more than 180 markets,” according to Spotify.

Even though other kinds of plans, including discounted student and family subscriptions, are not part of this comparison, it is worth noting that YouTube offers an individual subscription plan with ad-free YouTube Premium and YouTube Music bundled together at R81.99/month – a compelling proposition for many users.

The convergence of music streaming services in South Africa towards similar price points follows trends in the US, the UK and Germany, where there is a at most a $1, £1 or €1 difference in pricing between the different services.

On a relative basis, the cost of music streaming is lower in emerging markets compared to those in the first world. This is evident in South Africa’s pricing being cheaper on a rand basis compared the US, UK and Germany but more expensive relative to Kenya.

Read: YouTube Premium price hike in South Africa

Pricing their services relative to purchasing power parity is a common strategy among multinational operators such as music and video streamers. When prices are affordable to local consumers, it is likelier that more will sign up for the service and boost revenues.  – © 2025 NewsCentral Media

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