- YouTube Premium Lite has now fully rolled out in the US
- It lets you watch "most" videos ad-free for $7.99 per month
- YouTube says it'll expand its pilot to more countries "this year"
Here's some good news if you're tired of increasingly lengthy YouTube ad breaks – a new YouTube Premium Lite plan has now fully rolled out in the United States, following some successful pilot tests.
The new plan costs $7.99 per month, compared to $13.99 per month for full YouTube Premium. The key difference between the two is music – while a Premium Lite plans lets you watch "most" videos ad-free, including anything related to "gaming, comedy, cooking or learning", that doesn't apply to music videos.
You also miss out on three other features compared to a full Premium plan. There's no offline or background video playback with the Lite plan, and you don't get full access to YouTube Music. In other words, YouTube Premium Lite is aimed at those who are already signed up to one of the other best music streaming services, but still want (mostly) ad-free YouTube videos.
On Premium Lite, YouTube says that ads "may appear on music content, Shorts, and when you search or browse", so it's not a completely ad-free experience like its pricier Premium alternative. But if you mostly use subscriptions to guide your viewing and don't watch lots of music videos, it could well be worth the price tag.
If that sounds up your street, you may be wondering Premium Lite is rolling out globally. Well, YouTube says that "in the coming weeks" it's going to launch Premium Lite in its other pilot countries, which are Thailand, Germany, and Australia. It added that it'll be bringing the plan in new pilots to "additional countries this year", but hasn't specified exactly when.
How does it compare?
As someone who watches a lot of free YouTube, but who also sadly lives in the UK, this YouTube Lite subscription looks like a no-brainer to me.
I'm a long-time Spotify subscriber, so don't really need YouTube Music and rarely watch music videos on YouTube. I also mainly watch YouTube based on my subscribed channels, and while the ability to download videos and play them in the background on my phone would be nice, that isn't a deal-breaker either.
The main driver for me is that I'm getting close to my limit with YouTube's increasingly lengthy ad breaks, so I would definitely sign up for Premium Lite if it was available in the UK.
It is yet another streaming subscription to add to the list, which is why I'm increasingly using the practice of subscription hopping for the best streaming services. But YouTube is now a significant enough part of my TV watching diet that I could justify the $7.99 a month (or whatever the equivalent is) for the Lite plan.
One thing that isn't yet clear is how easy it is to switch from an existing YouTube Premium plan to the cheaper Premium Lite. Two of my colleagues on TechRadar have checked to see if there's an option to switch, but are so far aren't seeing anything in Subscription Management. I've checked with YouTube on the process and will update this story if we hear back.
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