Stop Overpaying for YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium is an awesome service for regular viewers, but you may be overpaying.

There are 3 main benefits to YouTube Premium. You can watch unlimited content with no ads, you can continue to listen to videos in the background while your phone is locked or in another app, and you can download videos to watch offline. These three amazing benefits also combine with access to YouTube Music which is great if you aren't already locked into the Spotify or Apple Music ecosystem like me.

Now that you know why people subscribe to YouTube Premium, let's talk about how to avoid paying more than you have to. Overpayment comes down to the "Apple Tax", a 30% fee that Apple charges app developers for payments processed through their app store. To avoid this fee, you should sign up through a computer (or an Android phone). This video walks through the steps to make the change and tells my story as a long time subscriber and recent convert from the $15.99 App Store subscription to the $11.99 subscription directly with Google.

Comment below how long you've been subscribed and which rate you're paying.

[williamferguson]

I've been a YouTube premium member for a few years and at first it was just to get rid of ads, but Youtube Music made it all worth it in my opinion.

[Ghost_Hybrid]

I get so much more content from Youtube Premium. More than 15x what I get from Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ combined. I don't mind creators running their own ad rolls, because it helps them make a living delivering the content I like. I can also skip ads with a few screen taps if I want. The algorithm ads are terrible, and just getting those out of the way is worth my sub.

[CyKoSyS]

Cameron, thank you so much for the excellent tip. I too was paying 29.99 a month via Apple. I did as you suggested and I'm saving $7.00 per month, $84 per year! I'm retired and this helps.

[hofimastah]

The video title should be "Stop overpaying for YouTube premium if you are an iPhone user"

[jillweinberg]

Thank you, Cameron! I've been OVER PAYING for almost 2 years and I am grateful for your teaching me how to stop paying the Apple tax! I use YouTube daily for meditations and appreciate you being here, especially when costs everywhere are rising.

[DaisakoKunandra]

I've been on YouTube premium since launch so I'm grandfathered in at $8.99 since I continued it from Google music. Been one of the services I will never end. I use the background play for listening to things in the car when I run errands or I can listen to audio on phone without killing my screen. I am always amazed whenever I see people dealing with ads on YouTube, I totally forget often that others have ads on their services.

[brianbogholtz]

I've had the Youtube Premium account since 2014 when I decided to leave Pandora behind. I uploaded about 5K songs onto Youtube Music from my home computer and then found an infinite amount of music related to my library in the years since then. Being able to build specific endless playlists and stream podcasts has also been great. It's probably the best thing I spend money on. Probably over 10, 000 hours of ad-free videos in the past decade has been worth every penny.

[NatJMan]

Oh my gosh! I stumbled across this video while researching something else about my subscription. I always thought it was strange that my Youtube Premium was billed through Apple, but got used to it. I've been a Premium member nearly four years now! I really appreciate this video and will be changing my billing immediately.

[mattcastillo]

I'm so glad I saw this video! I was overpaying for 2 years! I had 1480 hours of ad-free video watching and 240 hours of background play...damn. You earned a like, sub, and notification bell my friend!

[AkramMaarouf]

Another neat trick is to subscribe to family membership and share the cost with a family member or a friend who lives in the same country, instead of paying for separate memberships 🙂

[jeangagne]

I had been a Premium subscriber for more than 2 years through Apple. Last July (2023), I received an email from Apple notifying me of a price increase for the Premium service. The next day, Youtube also sent me an email about the upcoming increase while letting me know how much I would save by subscribing directly to them. Which I did immediately.

[Lightcode]

I've always hated ads but I also love being able to download and play on my own terms and especially at night when I don't want the Wi-Fi on. That makes it worth it to me although I do miss when they actually had premium content which seems to be non-existent now.

[DB-phvk]

Super helpful! I subscribed to YouTube premium via my iPhone and was wondering why the billing was routing through Apple. I was also wondering if I was somehow paying too much and you’ve just answered all my questions. Thanks Cameron.

[m.hreels]

Yeah, the ads have been insane. Like even if I wanted to skip to another part, I immediately get hit by ads. I feel like I spend more time watching the ads than actually getting to actually consume the content. I know they're just doing this because they want to try to force people to subscribe rather than having YouTube be a free platform. But when I checked out how expensive it is, my jaw dropped because it's considerably more than most streaming services for a single user. Thank you so putting out this video. I don't know yet if I'm going to pay the $15 or just stomach the constant ads or not

[rogerdodger]

I quit my premium because they suspended me from commenting for a day over a comment I made. I'm not paying for them to hassle me.
I'm also spending less time on YT as well.

[jacksonian]

Thank you Cameron. I'd been paying that extra $4/month for a long time now. I just didn't know about the 'Apple Tax.' You definitely earned a like, subscribe, comment and share from me.

[lecat]

Just received a notice this morning saying my family plan membership is increasing from $23/mo to $30/mo. Been a member since Nov 1, 2020. I did not realize I’ve been paying this goddamn sorry ass apple tax for two years now. Going through the steps to cancel my membership and then renewing on a PC device.

Huge thanks for waking me up to this!

[DavidMichaelCommer]

I am so glad YouTube promoted this to my feed! I just got premium a couple of months ago, but Apple now charges $18.99 per month and that really seemed like too much even though I have taken to watching more YouTube content than television. Thank you so much for this information.

[chris_toohey]

Thanks for the info. 😀 If I transfer / delete my apple subscription and sign up through YT for direct account, do I lose all my history and downloads etc.??

[hallianzz]

That is simply awesome 👏 I am living in Saudi Arabia and I was paying 32.99 Saudi Riyal per month (subscribed through iPhone) and now because of you (all steps explained so easily) I subscribed again from windows and it is costing me 23.99 Saudi riyal per month. Great job mate 👍 thanks a lot 😊