Spotify has a few Premium plans to choose from. If you pay for one of them, you should make sure you’re getting the most out of your monthly subscription fee. We’ll help you get your money’s worth.
While it’s totally possible to use Spotify for free, there are several limitations, including ads. If you weighed the differences and decided to try Spotify Premium, you’ll want to make sure to take advantage of the benefits.
RELATED: Spotify Free vs. Premium: Is it Worth Upgrading?
Download Music for Offline Listening
Arguably the best feature of Spotify Premium—besides no ads—is the ability to download music for offline listening. This is great for saving data and making sure you still have music to listen to when you don’t have an internet connection.
You can download pretty much anything on Spotify for offline listening. That includes full albums, playlists, and podcasts. It’s technically not possible to download a specific song, but you can download your “Liked Songs” playlist. Just “like” any song you want to download and it will be available offline.
It’s very easy to download music for offline listening. Just look for the little download icon on playlists, albums, and podcasts. It’s available in the mobile and desktop apps.
RELATED: How to Download Music from Spotify for Offline Playback
Listen to Music in High Quality
If sound quality is important to you, streaming services may not be your cup of tea. Typically, streaming quality is not as good as other methods. However, if you have Spotify Premium, you can improve it.
Spotify limits the music quality to a max of 160kbit/s with a free account. That’s pretty solid, but it can be better. Spotify Premium has an extra “Very High” option that streams at 320kbit/s, double the free option.
Streaming quality can be adjusted in all of the Spotify mobile and desktop apps. The web player caps the quality at 256kbit/s for Spotify Premium and it can’t be adjusted. Make sure you’ve got good headphones to appreciate the higher quality.
Use Third-Party Services
Lastly, let’s look outside of Spotify. Due to Spotify’s popularity, there are a lot of third-party apps and services that tie into it. Many of these services require a Premium subscription.
Basically, if an app or service needs to be able to play a specific song on demand, you will need a Spotify Premium account to use. One such service is JQBX, which is a virtual “room” you and your friends can join. One person is the “DJ” and everyone can suggest songs.
If you’re an Android user, the Google Clock has Spotify support. It allows you to choose any song from Spotify and use it as your alarm. To do this on an iPhone you can download a third-party app, such as Morning Music Alarm Clock Up.
As briefly mentioned, one of the best things about Spotify Premium isn’t a functional “feature,” it’s not hearing ads. That on top of all these other features makes it well worth the price for people who listen to a lot of music. If you ever feel like you’re not using these features enough, it’s easy to cancel at any time.
