Google has announced price increases for its YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscription services in South Africa, with some plans seeing a substantial hike of up to 36 percent.
The company has begun informing current subscribers via email about these changes, which they state are necessary to "continue delivering great service and features." The notification also mentioned that the price adjustment will allow them to further improve Premium and support the creators and artists on the platform. These new prices are already in effect for new subscribers. Existing customers will see the updated fees reflected on their first billing date in June 2025.
Specifically, the monthly cost of the YouTube Music individual plan will rise by 8%, from R59.99 to R64.99. The YouTube Music Family plan, which accommodates up to five accounts, will experience an 11% increase, moving from R89.99 to R99.99 per month. YouTube Music is Google's music streaming service, the successor to Google Play Music, and competes with platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. A subscription offers ad-free listening to millions of songs, along with features such as offline downloads.
YouTube Premium, which is more comprehensive and includes ad-free viewing across all of YouTube in addition to a YouTube Music subscription, will also see price adjustments. The individual YouTube Premium plan will increase by 14%, from R71.99 to R81.99 per month. The most significant change affects the YouTube Premium Family plan, which will jump by 36% from R109.99 to R149.99 per month.
Despite the considerable size of some of these increases, Google points out that this is the first price adjustment for both YouTube Music and YouTube Premium since their initial launch in South Africa in March 2019. Since then, the South African rand has experienced a significant weakening against the US dollar. The average exchange rate in March 2019 was R14.39 per dollar, compared to approximately R18.25 in March 2025, representing a roughly 27% depreciation of the rand. Furthermore, South Africa has also experienced an inflation rate of around 31% between March 2019 and March 2025. These economic factors likely contribute to Google's decision to increase subscription prices.