YouTube Launches Premium Lite in the U.S.: A Limited But More Affordable Option

Today, YouTube introduced a new version of its premium service called Premium Lite. YouTube Premium has been around for a long time offering ad-free video viewing, downloads, and the ability to listen in the background for $13.99/month in the U.S.

Source: YouTube.

With Lite, YouTube is offering a more affordable version of Premium for $7.99/month. The new tier will still include ads for music and music videos and it won’t let you download videos or play them in the background; however, other video categories will be ad-free.

It’s good to see YouTube offer something at a lower price point. YouTube Premium’s price has crept up in recent years, and the features that Lite leaves behind seem like natural break points in the service. For some users, YouTube is music, in which case, they’ll want the full Premium plan to avoid ads. For others like me, who use YouTube occasionally for music, $7.99 is a significantly better deal, though I’d prefer if background play was part of Lite, too.