Reviews

The Apple Music Family Plan: An All-Inclusive Review

By Adam Davidson

Published June 12, 2023

Are you looking to share an Apple Music subscription with up to six friends and family? Learn more about the Apple Music Family Plan here.

Apple Music is a popular music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs. If you’re an Apple user, the app integrates neatly into the Apple ecosystem, allowing you to request songs through Siri or access your favorite playlists on any of your devices. You can even use Apple Music on Android phones.

There are a number of different subscription options available. One of the most economical is the Apple Music Family Plan which allows you to share a subscription among up to six different people. Read on to learn more about the Apple Music Family Plan.

What is the Apple Music Family Plan?

The Apple Music Family Plan is an Apple Music subscription that allows up to six users to have full access to Apple Music’s library of more than 100 million songs and over 30,000 playlists. Each user has unlimited access through their personal account, with their own music library and listening recommendations that they can access across all their devices.

Apple Music Family Plan members get access to the full features of Apple Music, including lossless audio, offline listening, and Spatial Audio, as well as newer features such as Apple Music Sing and Apple Music Classical. In effect, it’s like having six Apple Music Individual accounts, but at a significantly reduced price tag.

How Much Does the Apple Music Family Plan Cost?

The Apple Music Family Plan costs $16.99 per month in the US, or £16.99 per month in the UK. This is the total price that covers all six users. One member of the group is responsible for paying the subscription, and there’s no way to split the subscription fee into six. However, if you want to share the costs, there’s nothing to stop the other members of the Apple Music Family Plan from reimbursing their share to whoever is paying.

If six people sign up for the Apple Music Family Plan, each person’s share per month works out to be less than $2.84 per month. In comparison, an Apple Music Individual plan is $10.99 per month, so the saving is almost 75%.

The Apple Music Family Plan is also available as part of the Apple One Family subscription, which costs $19.95/£19.95. For this price, as well as up to six accounts getting access to Apple Music, each account also gains full access to Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade and can share 200 GB of iCloud storage.

An individual Apple TV+ subscription is $6.99, and an Apple Music Individual subscription is $10.99. That means that the Apple One Family plan could save you as much as $90 a month between six people. That’s without factoring in the cost of Apple Arcade, too.

How Does the Apple Music Family Plan Compare?

If you and five other people are planning on signing up for Apple Music, then opting for an Apple Music Family plan is a no-brainer when it comes to the cost. But is the service actually any good? How does it compare to other similar services?

The first thing to note is that an Apple Music Family Plan at $16.99 comes in a touch more expensive than Spotify Premium Family Plan, which is currently $15.99. For some reason, both services are the same price in the UK, at £16.99. Deezer is even more expensive, with a Family plan at $17.99. Pandora and Tidal both offer Family plans at $14.99 per.

Spotify is the app that started the streaming music revolution, so how does Apple Music compare? Both offer a similar amount of music, with about 100 million tracks available on both services. Currently, Apple Music also offers better audio quality. Apple Music offers lossless audio, with Spotify HiFi still not yet launched, despite being announced way back in 2021.

Apple Music has also recently released a dedicated app for classical music called Apple Music Classical. It’s included as part of your Apple Music subscription and makes finding great classical music much easier.

Spotify does have some advantages, however. Spotify’s Discover Weekly offers some excellent music recommendations. Apple has similar personalized playlists, but in my experience, these don’t contain quite as many new songs that I really like when compared to Spotify. Spotify also has a lot of great podcasts within the app; Apple Music doesn’t include podcasts; these are found in the separate Podcasts app.

How to Set Up an Apple Music Family Plan

The way that you set up an Apple Music Family Plan will differ depending on whether you already have an Apple Music subscription or not.

How to Sign Up For a New Apple Music Family Plan Subscription

If you don’t already have an Apple Music subscription, you can sign up for one directly from within the Apple Music app.

To sign up for a new Apple Music Family Plan subscription:

1. Open the Apple Music app.
2. At the bottom of the screen, tap Listen Now.
3. Select Join Apple Music.
4. Tap Family and then tap Join Apple Music to confirm.
5. To confirm your decision, tap Subscribe and sign in to your Apple account to confirm your subscription.
6. You can now add family members to your subscription by following the steps below.

How to Switch to an Apple Music Family Plan Subscription

If you already have a different Apple Music subscription, you can change it to an Apple Music Family Plan from within the Apple Music app.

To switch to an Apple Music Family Plan:

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap on your Apple ID account at the top of the screen.
   
3. Select Subscriptions.
   
4. Tap Apple Music.
5. Tap See All Plans.
   
6. Select the Apple Music Family Plan.
7. Follow the instructions to complete your upgrade.

How to Add Members to Your Apple Music Family Plan

Once you have your subscription set up, you can add members to your plan. Each member will need their own Apple ID.

To add members to your Apple Music Family Plan:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Family just below your Apple ID.
   
   
3. Tap the Add Member icon in the top-right corner.
   
4. Select one of the suggested people or tap Invite Others.
   
5. Send your invitation via one of the sharing methods, or if the person is with you, tap Invite in Person.
   
6. The person can now enter their Apple ID and password. You can add up to five people to your Family group.
   

Managing Your Apple Music Subscription

If you know five other people that want to sign up for Apple Music or already have individual subscriptions, then signing up for the Apple Music Family Plan is a no-brainer. It can save each member a significant amount of money while still giving them the same features as an individual plan.

If you’re an Apple Music user, there are some useful things you should know. You can learn how to add your own music to Apple Music if the songs you have aren’t on the service. If you create a great playlist, you might want to know how to share a playlist on Apple Music. And if you have a particular favorite song, you may want to learn how to use an Apple Music song as your iPhone alarm.