Spotify vs Apple Music vs YouTube Music

Spotify is the best of the three if you might not pay: it has the only free plan that works like a real music app, official support on 12 of the 13 kinds of device we checked, and podcasts plus 15 hours a month of audiobooks in the same $12.99 subscription. If you will pay, Apple Music scores higher on our own numbers, 8.0 to 7.4 with the free plan left out: it adds hi-res lossless audio and Dolby Atmos, keeps up to 100,000 of your own songs in the cloud, and costs $1 a month less. Pick YouTube Music if you also want ad-free YouTube, because YouTube Premium at $15.99 a month includes it, or if the lowest family price matters most.

Overall, Spotify scores 7.3, Apple Music 6.9 and YouTube Music 6.2. Spotify's lead over Apple Music comes from its free plan and its podcasts and audiobooks; Apple Music beats it on sound quality, library tools and price. Moving five of the 100 weight points from the free plan to sound quality would put Apple Music first. Spotify stays the paid pick if you want podcasts and audiobooks in one app or wear a Wear OS watch.

What they cost in 2026

All three raised their US prices this year: Spotify in early 2026, YouTube in April and Apple on July 17. Many answers that AI assistants give still quote the old prices. In our October 2026 sample, one listed Spotify Family at $19.99 and Duo at $14.99, another quoted $11.99 for Spotify and $5.99 for students, and a third put YouTube Music's family plan at $14.99. Here is what each charges now.

Plan, per month	Spotify	Apple Music	YouTube Music
One person	$12.99	$11.99	$11.99
Two people at one address	$18.99 (Duo)	None	None
Family, up to six people	$21.99	$19.99	$18.99
Student	$6.99, Hulu (With Ads) included	$6.99, Apple TV included	Unconfirmed (see below)
Free trial for new subscribers	Two months on Individual until November 1, 2026	One month (three with an eligible new audio device)	One month
Bundle, one person	None	Apple One, $21.95	YouTube Premium, $15.99, adds ad-free YouTube
Bundle, family	None	Apple One Family, $27.95	YouTube Premium Family, $26.99

Spotify's prices are from Spotify's US Premium page and Apple's from Apple Music's page, both read on October 21, 2026; Apple One Family is from MacRumors. YouTube's pricing pages would not show prices to our US connection ("Music Premium isn't available in your country"), so YouTube's figures are as reported by TechCrunch and Variety on April 10, 2026, when YouTube Music rose from $10.99 to $11.99, its family plan from $16.99 to $18.99, YouTube Premium from $13.99 to $15.99 and YouTube Premium Family from $22.99 to $26.99. YouTube's one-month trial is from Sonos's YouTube Music page. YouTube Music has a US student plan, but we couldn't confirm its price: search results show $5.49 and some guides $5.99. Check YouTube's Music Premium page before you subscribe.

Over a year, a family pays $263.88 for Spotify, $239.88 for Apple Music and $227.88 for YouTube Music. For two people, Spotify Duo at $18.99 costs the same as YouTube Music's family plan and $1 less than Apple's.

Every family and two-person plan here is for one household. Spotify Duo and Family need everyone at the same address, and Family adds parental controls over all members (Spotify's Premium page). YouTube's family plan covers the manager and up to five people at the same address (family plan help). Apple's family plan works through Family Sharing, which covers the organizer and five family members and includes Ask to Buy and Screen Time for children (Family Sharing).

The YouTube Premium question deserves its own sum. If you would pay for ad-free YouTube anyway, YouTube Premium at $15.99 includes YouTube Music Premium, so music costs you nothing extra. Spotify plus YouTube Premium comes to $28.98 a month. For a family, YouTube Premium Family at $26.99 covers ad-free YouTube and music for six people; Spotify Family plus YouTube Premium Family would be $48.98. YouTube Premium Lite, at $8.99, removes ads from most videos but excludes music (TechCrunch).

Free plans: only Spotify's works like a music app

Spotify scores 7, YouTube Music 4 and Apple Music 1. Spotify Free plays music with ads on phones and computers, and the music keeps playing when you switch apps or lock the phone. Spotify doesn't list background play among Premium's extras (Premium benefits); we inferred it from that page rather than from a statement. Since September 2025, free listeners on phones can also pick and play any song for a daily allowance Spotify hasn't published; after that, the app goes back to limited skips (TechCrunch). Free listening streams at up to about 160 kbps (Spotify's audio quality page). Spotify's help page for Alexa speakers is marked for Premium (Spotify on Alexa).

YouTube Music's free plan lets you pick songs and skip as often as you like, but on a phone the music stops when you leave the app or lock the screen: background play for music is a Premium feature (What is YouTube Music?). It also doesn't play music through CarPlay or Android Auto, and on Nest speakers it plays only radio-style mixes with six skips an hour (YouTube Music on other devices). On Sonos, free accounts get only their own uploads (Sonos). That rules it out for listening on a walk or in the car.

Apple Music has no free on-demand plan. Without a subscription you can listen to Apple Music Radio's live stations, and that's all.

Sound quality: Apple Music leads, but Bluetooth hides most of the gap

Apple Music scores 10, Spotify 7 and YouTube Music 4.

• Apple Music says it is making its whole catalog available in lossless ALAC, up to 48 kHz as "Lossless" and up to 24-bit/192 kHz as "Hi-Res Lossless", plus thousands of tracks in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, all in the regular plan (Apple Music's page).
• Spotify added lossless to Premium in September 2025: FLAC up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz, across "most of the Spotify catalog" (Spotify's Premium benefits page). Its best lossy setting is about 320 kbps (audio quality page). It has no hi-res above 44.1 kHz and no Dolby Atmos music.
• YouTube Music tops out at 256 kbps AAC or Opus, lossy, with no lossless option (YouTube Music's audio quality help).

Some assistants still get Spotify wrong. In our October 2026 sample, two of Gemini's answers said Spotify streams at most 320 kbps, and one said neither Spotify nor YouTube Music offers lossless. Spotify's own pages have listed lossless for Premium since September 2025.

The gap matters less than the numbers suggest, for two reasons. First, Bluetooth: Apple's own guide says AirPods and most Beats headphones use the AAC Bluetooth codec and that "Bluetooth connections aren't lossless" (About lossless audio in Apple Music). The same holds for any service's stream sent over ordinary Bluetooth, so on most wireless headphones lossless from Apple or Spotify reaches your ears re-compressed. To hear lossless you need wired headphones, a receiver or powered speakers, or a few exceptions Apple lists (AirPods Max plugged in with USB-C, for one). Hi-Res above 48 kHz on an iPhone also needs an external digital-to-analog converter. Second, hearing it: a 2016 meta-analysis of 18 listening experiments by Joshua Reiss found listeners could tell high-resolution audio from CD quality, but only by a small margin, and much better after training. That study compared hi-res with CD quality, not with lossy streams.

We ran no listening test of our own. What Hi-Fi, which compares services by ear, found Apple Music "way clearer and better defined than Spotify Lossless" on hi-res tracks (What Hi-Fi, May 2026). That was on hi-fi equipment, not Bluetooth earbuds.

What Dolby Atmos adds is different from resolution: it is a mix in which sound comes from around and above you, and Apple plays it on any headphones. If you want that, only Apple Music has it of these three.

Devices: Spotify and Apple Music play on almost everything

Spotify and Apple Music both score 9.2 (12 of 13 checks); YouTube Music scores 6.9 (9 of 13). We counted official apps and integrations, not casting from a phone, which works with all three. Some rows below combine two checks: iPhone and Android, Windows and Mac.

Device	Spotify	Apple Music	YouTube Music
iPhone and Android	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows and Mac apps	Yes	Yes	No, an installable web app
Web player	Yes	Yes	Yes
Amazon Alexa	Yes, for Premium	Yes	No
Google Nest	Yes	Yes	Yes; free plays radio-style mixes only
Sonos	Yes	Yes	Yes, for Premium (free: your uploads only)
Apple HomePod, natively	No, AirPlay only	Yes	Yes, for Premium
Smart TVs and streaming boxes	Yes	Yes	Through the YouTube app
Apple Watch, playing on the watch	Yes, for Premium	Yes	No, a remote for the phone
Wear OS watches	Yes	No	Yes
CarPlay and Android Auto	Yes	Yes	Yes, for Premium

Sources: Spotify's help pages for supported devices, Alexa, Google devices, Sonos, TV and Apple Watch; Apple Music's page, Apple Music with Alexa and Apple Music on TVs and consoles; YouTube Music's help on other devices, Sonos's YouTube Music page and 9to5Google on HomePod support since October 2023. YouTube Music's Apple Watch app launched in 2020 as a remote that plays on the phone (iMore), and a June 2026 report says playback still needs the iPhone (WebProNews).

The practical splits: an Alexa household should skip YouTube Music, a Wear OS watch owner should skip Apple Music, and Spotify is the one that needs AirPlay from a phone to play on a HomePod. Spotify says it works on more than 2,000 devices (Premium page).

Your library: moving in, moving out and sharing

Apple Music scores 10, YouTube Music 8 and Spotify 6.

• Moving in. All three now have a built-in way to bring your playlists from another service: Spotify through TuneMyMusic inside the app (Spotify's import page), Apple Music in the app and on the web (Apple's transfer guide), and YouTube Music in its settings (YouTube's transfer guide). Each matches songs against its own catalog, so expect a few gaps. Apple's tool moves only playlists you created, not ones the other service made for you.
• Moving out. Apple can send your playlists to YouTube Music from its Data and Privacy page (Apple's export guide), and Google Takeout can send YouTube Music playlists to Apple Music (Google's export guide). Spotify offers no export tool of its own; leaving means a third-party app.
• Your own files. Apple Music's Sync Library keeps up to 100,000 of your own songs in the cloud for subscribers (Apple Music User Guide). YouTube Music takes up to 100,000 uploads, and they play ad-free and in the background even without Premium (uploads help). Spotify plays your own files only from the device they're stored on (local files).
• Sharing. All three have collaborative playlists. For listening together live, Spotify has Jam, a shared queue a Premium user starts and free users can join (Jam), and Apple Music has SharePlay on FaceTime calls (Apple's SharePlay guide) and in CarPlay (Apple Music's page). YouTube Music has no live group listening.

Podcasts, audiobooks and videos

Spotify scores 10, YouTube Music 7 and Apple Music 3. Spotify Premium Individual includes 15 hours a month of audiobooks from a catalog of more than 700,000 titles; on Duo and Family only the plan manager gets those hours (Spotify's audiobooks page). Spotify also has podcasts and, on Premium, thousands of music videos (music videos). YouTube Music has podcasts and music videos, plus everything uploaded to YouTube: covers, live recordings, DJ sets and remixes that aren't on other services. Apple Music has music videos and the separate Apple Music Classical app, but no podcasts or audiobooks; Apple sells that as "no distractions". Podcasts are free in all three companies' apps, so this criterion scores having them in the same app, not something you pay for. If you want a music-only app, count it as a point for Apple rather than against it.

Recommendations: the thing we couldn't score

Most reviews and AI answers we read praise Spotify's recommendations most: Discover Weekly, daylist and its DJ. That may well be right, but we found no independent test with a published method that compares the three services' recommendations, and we didn't run one, so we didn't score it. All three now have AI playlist tools for Premium members: Spotify's DJ and Prompted Playlists, Apple's Playlist Playground and YouTube's Ask Music. The fair way to settle this for yourself is to use each free plan or trial for a week with your own listening.

The three, scored

Spotify

Spotify ranks first of the three (7.3) and suits most people, especially anyone who might not pay: it is the only one you can use properly for free (TechCrunch), it plays on 12 of the 13 kinds of device we checked, and Premium includes podcasts and 15 hours of audiobooks a month. It is the most expensive ($12.99 alone, $21.99 for a family), its lossless stops at 24-bit/44.1 kHz with no Dolby Atmos, and it can't store your own music files in the cloud.

Apple Music

Apple Music ranks second (6.9), 0.4 behind Spotify, and is the better buy for anyone who will pay: it has the best sound of the three, with Hi-Res Lossless and Dolby Atmos in the regular plan (Apple Music's page), the best tools for your own music library, and it costs $11.99 a month alone or $19.99 for a family. It has no free plan beyond live radio, no Wear OS app and no podcasts or audiobooks.

YouTube Music

YouTube Music ranks third (6.2). It is the cheapest for a family, at $18.99 a month as reported in April 2026, and it comes with YouTube Premium, which makes it the obvious pick if you already pay to skip YouTube ads. It streams lossy audio only, at 256 kbps at best (audio quality help), its free plan stops when you lock your phone, and it has no desktop app, Alexa support or Apple Watch playback.

Which one should you choose?

• You won't pay for music: Spotify. Its free plan is the only one that keeps playing with the screen off.
• You'll pay, and don't need podcasts or audiobooks in your music app: Apple Music. It costs less than Spotify and sounds better.
• You pay for YouTube Premium, or you were about to: YouTube Music. It's already included.
• You listen on wired headphones or a hi-fi system: Apple Music, the only one with hi-res lossless and Dolby Atmos.
• You want podcasts and audiobooks in the same app: Spotify.
• Your household uses Alexa speakers: Apple Music or Spotify Premium, not YouTube Music.
• You wear a Wear OS watch: Spotify or YouTube Music, not Apple Music.
• Two people sharing a home: Spotify Duo or YouTube Music's family plan, at the same price. Duo is the pick if you want Spotify's podcasts, audiobooks and Jam; YouTube's plan has room for four more people.
• A family on a tight budget: YouTube Music, if lossy sound and no Alexa are fine for you; otherwise Apple Music for $1 more.

How we scored

We scored the three services on six criteria with weights set before scoring: Price (25), Devices (20), Sound quality (15), Free plan (15), Library and sharing (15) and Beyond music (10). Each score follows written anchors in the scoring sheet, which also names the source for every score. This page is desk-researched: everything comes from the companies' own US pricing pages and help centers, read on October 21, 2026, except YouTube's prices, which come from April 2026 news reports because YouTube's pricing pages wouldn't load for us. We didn't run listening tests, test recommendations or check a list of albums against each catalog. Spotify and Apple say they carry more than 100 million tracks, and YouTube says YouTube Music has more than 300 million (TechCrunch).

Questions people ask

Does Spotify have lossless audio now? Yes. Since September 2025, Premium in the US streams FLAC up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz. You turn it on in the app's audio quality settings on each device.

Does YouTube Premium include YouTube Music? Yes. YouTube Premium, at $15.99 a month as reported in April 2026, includes YouTube Music Premium. YouTube Premium Lite, at $8.99, does not.

Is Apple Music free with an iPhone? No. New subscribers get one month free, three months with an eligible new audio device, and new iPhone, iPad and Mac buyers get three months of Apple One. After that it's $11.99 a month.

Can I move my playlists from Spotify to Apple Music or YouTube Music? Yes. Apple Music and YouTube Music both have a transfer tool built in that signs in to Spotify and copies the playlists you made. Songs either service can't match are left out or offered as alternate versions.

Which is cheapest for a family? YouTube Music, at $18.99 a month for up to six people as reported in April 2026, then Apple Music at $19.99 and Spotify at $21.99.