Amazon, Pandora Plan Cheaper Music Streaming Services

Two media companies may soon offer music-streaming alternatives to the longstanding $10-a-month subscriptions offered by Spotify and Apple Music.

Amazon.com and Pandora Media will soon introduce additional music-streaming services for as little as $5 a month, the New York Times reports, citing “people with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process was ongoing.”

Pandora is expected to introduce an expanded version of its existing $5-a-month subscription plan as early as this week. New features will include the ability to skip more songs and to store several hours’ worth of playlists online, according to the Times report.

Pandora is also expected to introduce a fully developed $10-a-month subscription plan option by Christmas. It would offer on-demand access to a library of tens of millions of songs.

This news comes close to one year after Pandora announced that “the next chapter of Pandora’s growth story” would follow its acquisition of parts of Rdio, a streaming radio service that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2015.

Amazon already offers a music streaming service with on-demand access to a smaller library of more than 1 million songs. This service is free to members of Amazon's Prime program, which comes with various other perks and costs $10.99 a month, or $99 a year.

But in the coming weeks, the New York Times reports, Amazon.com is expected to introduce a music service with a “fall catalog.” It would cost $10 a month. For customers using Amazon's Echo voice-activated speaker system, it would cost half as much.

If you’d still rather pay nothing for your music, check out “5 Music Streaming Services That Are Still Free.”

Would you pay $5 or $10 a month for the new services expected to be introduced by Amazon or Pandora? Sound off by commenting below or over on our Facebook page.