Spotify Audiobooks: How to use them, and is it worth it? (Update!)
Spotify, the most popular music streaming platform in the world, is now branching out to attract audiobook listeners. But the new audiobook benefit is frankly pretty confusing to sort out.
At the end of 2023, Spotify announced that they would begin including 15 hours of audiobook streaming time in their Premium subscription plans. Having just launched, this new feature is still in its infant stages, but audiobook listeners everywhere are wondering:
How does the Spotify audiobook benefit work? Who qualifies for it? How do Spotify audiobooks compare to Audible, and does this mean I can get rid of my Audible subscription?
I’m an avid audiobook listener, and as an existing Spotify subscriber, I was eager to try out this new element of my subscription. Now that I’ve been trying it out for several months, I’m ready to share my findings with you.
In this post, I’ll break down how the Spotify audiobook benefits work (and who gets them), how Spotify audiobooks compare to Audible (a service I’ve used for years and years), and where I think Spotify really needs to improve if it wants to stay in the Audiobook game.
Want the tldr;? As it currently stands, Spotify audiobooks can be a nice supplement for audiobook listeners, but it isn’t a viable substitute for services like Audible — yet. I’m hoping Spotify will listen to subscribers and adapt so they can make a real run at being competitive in the audiobook industry (because believe me, an Amazon monopoly isn’t good for anyone). Read on to get all the details.
Update 7/7/24: Spotify changed the structure of their Family plans, so I no longer think it’s worth it to keep audiobook listening hours if you’re using a family plan. Read on for more details.
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Spotify Enters Audiobook Arena: A Quick Overview
Audiobooks have become an increasingly popular way to consume books, especially in recent years.
According to Wordsrated.com, almost a quarter of Americans listened to at least one audiobook in 2021, compared to only 15% in 2020. Audiobook sales have increased more than 50% in the last 5 years in the US, and audiobooks accounted for nearly 1 in 10 US book sales in 2022.
It’s no surprise that the biggest player in the audiobook market is Audible, which is owned by Amazon. Some estimates say that Amazon controls nearly ⅔ of the US audiobook market, and each year, they seem to extend their lead against competitors.
Enter, Spotify, with an apparent aim to compete with Amazon for a bit of the growing audiobook business. While you’ve had the ability to purchase audiobooks on Spotify for some time now, it never seemed to be a big focus for the company until they introduced the audiobook streaming benefit in the last quarter of 2023.
Statistics source: http://www.wordsrated.com/audiobook-statistics/
Related: Ever wondered if an Audible subscription is really worth it? Check out my complete Audible review and my hacks for saving money on the subscription costs.
How Spotify Audiobook Benefits Work
Spotify’s approach to audiobooks is really very different from any of the other audiobook subscription services I’ve seen out there, and honestly, it’s a little confusing when you first try to figure it out.
Now that I’ve been testing it out for a few months and have also perused every bit of information Spotify has put out there on the subject, I’m ready to break it down for you in the simplest terms.
What Spotify plans include audiobooks?
Basically, most paid Spotify subscriptions now include 15 hours a month of audiobook listening, but not EVERYONE gets the benefit. Here’s who qualifies from among the different Spotify subscription options:
| Spotify Premium (individual plan) | Spotify Duo | Spotify Family | Spotify Premium Student |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.99 / mo** | $14.99 / mo** | $16.99 / mo | $5.99 / mo |
| ✔️ | Plan manager only | Plan manager only** | ❌ |
That is to say, that if you share a Spotify plan with anyone else, whether one person or a family, only the plan manager — the person who handles the billing and administration of the account — receives the audiobook benefit. If you are on a discounted student plan, you will NOT receive the audiobook benefit.
Spotify also just released a new plan option for audiobook listeners. The audiobook only plan is $9.99 a month and still includes 15 hours of audiobook listening — no other benefits, like ad-free music streaming.
Important Update July 7, 2024
In June, 2024 Spotify added a new distinction based on audiobook benefits: Basic versus Premium plans.
| Spotify Plans (as of July 2024) | Current Price | Old Price | Audiobook listening time included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotify Premium (individual plan) | $11.99 / mo | $10.99/mo | 15 hours |
| Spotify Basic Individual | $10.99/mo | n/a | ❌ |
| Spotify Premium Duo | $16.99/mo | $14.99/mo | 15 hours for plan manager only |
| Spotify Premium Family | $19.99/mo | $16.99/mo | 15 hours for plan manager only |
| Spotify Basic Family | $16.99/mo | n/a | ❌ |
| Spotify Premium Student | $5.99/mo | $5.99/mo | ❌ |
| Audiobooks access only | $9.99/mo | 15 hours |
Basically, there are now more Spotify plan options than ever, and I don’t personally like the direction they’re going in. It really makes no sense. For a family plan, you pay $4 more per month (or $48 more per year) for one person to get 15 hours of audiobook time. That is the exact same benefit for which they charge an additional $1 in the premium individual account ($12 per year). How does that make any sense?
In that same vein, you pay an additional $2 per month for this benefit in a Duo plan ($24 per year). Now, if all the plan members were getting the audiobook listening time, this difference would make some sense, but when it’s always 1 person who gets the same 15 hours, this price difference for the different plans is absolutely nonsensical.
Key things to know
Now, here’s some important points to understand about how the Spotify audiobook benefit works:
- You do not need to do anything to activate the benefit. It starts automatically for subscribers / plan managers who are part of a plan in which audiobooks are included.
- The 15 hours references recorded time, so no, listening at a faster speed doesn’t mean you get to listen to more audiobook each month.
- If you share a Spotify plan, only the plan manager — meaning the person from whose account the billing is handled — gets the audiobook listening time.
- You can’t choose ANY audiobook — it must be from the Premium audiobook library. Not all audiobooks available on Spotify are included in the 15-hour listening time. The ones that are included will say so clearly. The others will tell you the price to purchase that audiobook.
- Time does not roll over from month to month. It’s use it or lose it.
- You CAN download audiobooks for offline listening.
- You do NOT own the audiobooks you stream.
- You can purchase individual audiobooks (which you will own), but there is no discounted price for subscribers.
What if you want more than 15 hours?: Spotify Top-Ups
The 15-hour benefit is honestly a really interesting way to structure an audiobook subscription, as opposed to a more straightforward method of limiting the number of audiobooks. I’m not entirely sure if that structure is here to stay, and I’ll be interested to see how it evolves.
Spotify claims that the vast majority of audiobooks are less than 15 hours, and that seems to be true. Wordsrated.com claims the average audiobook is about 10 hours long. I myself put it to the test with some research of my own (see the table in the next section).
So what happens if the book you’re listening to on Spotify is longer than 15 hours, or you want to listen to two books that, combined, equal more than 15 hours?
You have two options:
- Wait for next month. Literally, the first of the month, your time will reset.
- Buy “top up” listening time.
To summarize Spotify audiobook top-ups in a nutshell:
- $10 gets you 10 additional hours of audiobook listening
- Top-ups DO roll over month to month
- They expire in 12 months
- You can only use them with an active subscription
If you buy top-up time, then any additional listening beyond the initial 15 hours in a month gets automatically deducted from your top-up. The next month, time gets deducted FIRST from your monthly 15 hours, then again, anything exceeding that limit gets deducted from the remaining top-up time.
You can only purchase in 10-hour increments, and if you happen to cancel your Spotify subscription, you lose your top-up time (unless you reactivate before they expire).
What’s in the Spotify Premium Audiobook Library?
As I said earlier, those 15 hours of listening time can’t be applied to just any book; it must be one of the audiobooks included in the Spotify Premium Audiobook Library. But honestly, the library is a little overwhelming and hard to browse (a problem that Audible also struggles with— which is why I put together the 50 best audiobooks included in the Audible Plus library).
So, I did my own test to get a sampling of the availability of books in the Spotify library. In my own browsing for audiobooks I wanted to listen to, I’d say it was included approximately 50% of the time. But I wanted to take this further.
I looked at the current New York Times Bestsellers lists in several categories, Audible’s current list of its bestselling audiobooks, and some of my own book recommendation lists, to try to get a more robust picture of how comprehensive Spotify’s Premium audiobook library is.
I was also curious to see how often titles exceed the allotted 15-hour monthly audiobook limit.
Here are the results of my research, keeping in mind that especially in the bestsellers categories, there is some title overlap:
| # Included in Spotify Premium Plus | # > 15 hr run time | |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Bestsellers: Fiction | 9 / 15 | 6 / 15 |
| NYT Bestsellers: Non-Fiction | 12 / 15 | 4 / 15 |
| NYT Bestsellers: Audiobooks (Fiction) | 12 / 15 | 6 / 15 |
| NYT Bestsellers: Audiobooks (Non-Fiction) | 12 / 15 | 4 / 15 |
| Audible Bestsellers | 12 / 20 | 0 / 20 |
| Easy Classics for Beginners | 12 / 15 | 2 / 15 |
| Best books I readin 2023 | 9 / 15 | 2 / 15 |
| Best books I read in 2022 | 6 / 7 | 0 / 7 |
| Cozy books to read | 8 / 12 | 0 / 12 |
| Books set in Italy | 8 / 11 | 1 / 11 |
| Books set in Greece | 15 / 24 | 1 / 24 |
| Books set in Hawaii | 4 / 14 | 1 / 14 |
| Books set in San Francisco | 6 / 13 | 0 / 13 |
As you can see, the Spotify Premium audiobook library does include a fair amount of bestselling books, like the popular Sarah J. Maas ACOTAR series (though nearly every book clocks in well over the 15 hour run-time, so you’ll have to pay to top up, or spread out your listening over many months).
There’s also a good amount of memoir, non-fiction, and classic literature, as represented by my recommended book lists (though not with celebrity narrators like you’ll find on Audible).
The Harry Potter series is NOT included, as of May, 2024. I mention it because the Harry Potter audiobooks are probably some of the most popular all-time audiobooks.
Related: Looking for some good audiobooks? Check out my list of the best audiobook narrators, because as any audiobook listener will tell you, a narrator can make or break an audiobook.
Spotify v. Audible: a head-to-head comparison
It’s tricky to compare the Spotify audiobook membership against Audible, because their structures are so different from each other. I actually think that’s a good thing — when new players compete in the audiobook game, it challenges all the existing players, and ultimately, it should be the readers who win.
If you’re considering between Spotify and Audible and unsure what all the differences are, here they are in a nutshell:
Essentially, Spotify’s audiobook subscription works in the same way that video-streaming apps do, like Netflix or Hulu; you can stream an audiobook, but you don’t own it. Once you cancel your subscription, you no longer have access to it.
While this is true of the Audible Plus catalog (which is free for Audible subscribers), your monthly credit in Audible Premium Plus allows you to purchase any audiobook you wish, meaning you will always have access to it, even if you cancel your Audible subscription. Neither subscription structure is inherently better than the other, but the difference is important to understand when comparing the two services.
If you’re simply comparing plans that allow you to stream audiobooks without owning them, Audible has a clear edge here — for a less expensive monthly subscription, you can listen to as many books from the Plus library as you possibly can.
Like on Audible, Spotify audiobooks allow you to change the narrator speed and to download books so you can listen to them when you’re offline, like when you’re traveling and don’t have WiFi. I’d say those are two of the most important features for audiobook listeners.
Related: Overwhelmed by the Audible Plus library? So was I. That’s why I put together a list of the 50 best books in the Audible Plus library.
My experience with Spotify audiobooks: the good and the bad
I have been using the Spotify audiobook credit since the beginning of 2024, basically when it was available to me as an existing Spotify subscriber. Here’s what I like:
- Getting to essentially “borrow” audiobook titles without putting them on a library hold
- The impressive availability of new releases and bestselling titles
- The ability to get these audiobooks for no additional cost, as I had already been using Spotify for a few years
- Ability to customize narrator speed (and fine tune it)
- Ability to easily download audiobooks to my device
- Not needing any new apps; integration of the audiobooks into the existing app
That being said, as this is totally new territory for Spotify, I think there’s still a lot that needs improving. Here were my frustrations and annoyances trying out Spotify audiobooks:
- It’s not easy to find out how much audiobook streaming time you have in the month — this is a seemingly easy fix and just requires better app design.
- Chapters don’t always correspond to the actual book chapters, making it difficult to find your place in a book.
- The division of hours each month sometimes gets frustrating — because I didn’t want to pay to top up, I had to wait weeks to finish the remaining hour of a book that I’d otherwise have finished at the beginning of the month.
- The top-up system doesn’t appeal to me, as purchasing top-up time costs nearly the same as just purchasing the title in the first place, but without all the complicated hassle.
- There are currently no discounts on purchasing audiobooks for Spotify subscribers. This seems like an obvious benefit I hope they will incorporate in the future.
- Top-ups and audiobooks have to be purchased in a web browser, not the app. I honestly don’t see this changing, as many apps do this to avoid sharing their profits with the app stores.
- As the app is designed more for music listening, it isn’t terribly easy to browse through audiobook titles in their catalog. Again, an app design issue I hope they will spend some time fixing.
Final Verdict: Are Spotify Audiobooks worth the subscription?
As the plan currently stands, I do not think it is worth signing up for Spotify ONLY for the audiobook benefit (and the $1 discount on an audiobook-only plan is honestly a little bit laughable. Who wouldn’t just spend $1 more per month and get the music subscription as well?).
HOWEVER, if you are already a Spotify subscriber, or if you are considering switching from another music subscription to Spotify, I do think the audiobook subscription is an exciting new benefit, and it gives Spotify even more of an edge against other music streaming services. Plus, if you’re like me, and you listen to multiple audiobooks a month, it’s just nice to have another source for those audiobooks without spending any more money.
Spotify audiobooks still has its kinks to work out as a subscription service, but I’m really pleased to see it entering the audiobook subscription space. I think it’s a really promising start. Hopefully, they will continue to refine their service now that it’s launched, and I’m excited to see what changes they make to it in the future.
After all, it took years before Audible launched the Premium Plus catalog, and I think that has been the absolute best development they’ve had since the subscription’s inception.
If Spotify is willing to adapt to consumer feedback and needs, I can see them becoming a real player in the audiobook space — competition which should benefit us, the consumers.
Updated verdict: July, 2024
If you read the above section detailing the new plans Spotify has released based on the audiobook credit, you’ll already know that I’m not happy. Why family subscribers should pay $48 per year for the same benefit an individual subscriber pays $12 a year for is absolute nonsense.
So, this changes things for me. Personally, as a family plan member, I decided to save the $48 per year and stick with the Spotify Basic Family plan. It’s not worth the extra $4 a month, especially considering the above factors that make it a less-than-ideal audiobook listening service.
If you have a Spotify Individual account and are an avid audiobook listener, it might be worth the extra $1 a month or $12 a year to keep it as an option.
Hopefully, this has answered all your questions about the new Spotify audiobook benefit, but if not, please drop a comment or shoot me an email! I will continue to use and test the Spotify audiobooks and to update this post as changes develop.
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