After YouTube spent two years testing Premium Lite, a lower-cost subscription plan for watching ad-free videos in select countries, the platform is pulling the plug on the tier. In an email to customers, YouTube announced that it will no longer offer Premium Lite after October 25, 2023.
At €6.99 per month, YouTube’s Premium Lite plan first launched in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. It offers ad-free viewing across the full spectrum of YouTube apps and formats, but does not include other Premium features such as offline downloads, background playback, or any YouTube Music benefits.
But soon, existing Premium Lite subscribers will have two options: go back to watching YouTube with ads or subscribe to the more expensive YouTube Premium, which also includes YouTube Music. In an email notifying users of the change, YouTube says it will offer Lite subscribers a free one-month trial of YouTube Premium, regardless of whether they’ve had a trial before. It notes that subscribers will have to cancel their Lite subscription or wait for it to be canceled in order to redeem the offer. YouTube raised the price of its Premium and Music subscriptions in the US in July.
“We are writing to inform you that after October 25, 2023, we will no longer offer your version of Premium Lite,” YouTube writes in the email. “While we understand this may be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of Premium Lite as we incorporate feedback from our users, creators, and partners.”
The edge has received several emails from Premium Lite subscribers to our tip line, informing us of their disappointment, while a Discussion on the ResetEra forum It is currently growing and other European users mourn the loss of its service. Premium Lite may have been a relatively unknown service to many of us living in the US and other regions we never had access to, but based on initial reactions to its discontinuation, it appears to be the “perfect” tier of Ricitos de I pray for those who want to skip the ads but have no interest in paying more for YouTube Music or downloading videos for offline viewing.
