Tidal unleashes its family-friendly subscription

Jay Zed's favourite music streamer, Tidal, today unleashes its new family plan pricing to its global market, offering discounts for new accounts tied to a 'parent' account.

The new setup allows for up to four new accounts to be attached to a single main bill-payer, with each benefiting from a 50% discount to whichever tier they're signed up to.

For the base 'Premium' level that means an extra £5 / $5 for each additional account and for the 'HiFi' tier, with its CD quality audio, that's an extra £10 / $10. Fill out all five accounts with CD quality music and you're looking at quite a Tidal bill at the end of the month…

Each account has its own login and can setup its own playlists as normal and register up to three different devices for offline playback.

It's something we've been long waiting for from Tidal, with Spotify offering its own family plan in a similar vein.

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Both though have been massively undercut by Apple Music, which has thrown caution to the wind at its inception, offering a £14.99 / $14.99 family plan with unrestricted access for up to six different people via its iCloud Family Sharing setup.

This is feeling a lot like it could be too little, too late from Tidal as it also looks like Spotify has plans to get close to, or match, Apple's family pricing.

Speaking to the Verge, Jonathan Price, global head of comms for Spotify, is quoted as saying "we already have similar family pricing in some markets and we expect to offer competitive pricing everywhere in the near future."

In its native Sweden a family of five can have full access to Spotify Premium for around $20 a month.

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