YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium have received annual plans to let users pay upfront for a 12-month non-recurring subscription. The latest addition comes years after YouTube offered its paid subscription models on a monthly and quarterly basis. The annual plans for both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium are currently limited to a handful of countries including India and the US. As an introductory offer, YouTube is initially offering discounts with the annual plans. Users can subscribe to the annual plans from their Android devices or through the Web.
As initially reported by 9to5Google, YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium are now available with annual plans for individual users. This means that students and users with family members will not be able to get the annual plans for their accounts.
YouTube is running a promotional offer under which customers are offered with discounts on the annual plans until January 23. The offer brings the annual plan for YouTube Premium at Rs. 1,159 ($107.99 in the US), while the annual plan for YouTube Music Premium is available with a discounted price of Rs. 889 ($89.99 in the US).
Details on how much users in India will be required to pay after the promotional offer ends are yet to be revealed. However, 9to5Google mentions that the annual plan of YouTube Premium will normally be available at $119.99, whereas the YouTube Music Premium on an annual basis will be given at $99.99 once the promotional offer ends.
Normally, YouTube Premium is available at Rs. 129 ($11.99 in the US) a month and YouTube Music Premium at Rs. 99 ($9.99 in the US) a month.
YouTube noted in a support page that the annual plans are currently available in India, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and the US.
In addition to new subscribers, users on an ongoing YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscription can move the annual plans after cancelling their existing membership and signing up as fresh. Additionally, subscribers in India who are on a one-month or three-month prepaid plan will be shifted to the annual plans once their prepaid plan expires.
Users on Android and the Web can sign up for a YouTube Premium annual plan. YouTube has, however, not yet provided an in-app sign-up option for iOS devices. In that case, iPhone and iPad users who want to buy the annual subscription need to make their purchase on a computer or mobile Web browser.
YouTube has importantly not provided partial refund support to users picking the annual plans. The payment for the plans is also on a prepaid basis and is of non-recurring nature. The latter means that you will need to manually purchase the subscription once the original annual plan expires.
Gadgets 360 has reached out to YouTube for a comment on the launch of its annual subscription plans and will update this article when the company responds.
In March 2019, YouTube launched YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium as its ad-free subscription models in India. It also added prepaid plans with non-recurring charges later in the year.
