Spotify on Thursday announced an expansion of its premium audiobooks service, with two new plans that offer additional listening hours to subscribers, and allow other family members to access the service.
The options are currently only available for Spotify Premium users in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, following initial tests in Ireland and Canada.
U.S. users could already purchase 15 hours of listening as a standalone offering through an Audiobooks Access Plan, but these additions make it possible for those in other markets to customize their access to their own needs.
The first new plan, Audiobooks+, offers Premium subscribers, or those who manage the household’s Family or Duo plan, to add 15 hours of listening every month on top of the base plan. Today, Spotify’s Premium plans include 15 hours of audiobook listening, so this new plan doubles that offering, ensuring subscribers can get through longer books or even a couple of shorter ones in the month.
The other new plan, Audiobooks+ for Plan Members, will be an even more welcome addition for those who want to share access to audiobooks: Members on Premium Family and Duo plans will be able to access 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening, too.
To use the feature, plan members will first request audiobook access from their plan manager, who purchases the new add-on. Members can also later buy a one-time top-up of 10 hours if they run out of listening time before the next billing cycle.
Spotify did not share the pricing for the new options, as they vary by market. (TechCrunch has reached out for a list of prices, if available, and will update if the company provides more information.)
One major publisher, HarperCollins, noted in December that Spotify was working to bring audiobooks to other family members on shared plans. At a conference, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murra said that the market had potential for further growth as Spotify was at the time working out a “technical issue” with family plans that limited audiobooks to the plan’s credit card holder.
The streaming service sees AI as another opportunity for expansion, saying in last quarter’s earnings that it was working with Eleven Labs to get more books narrated, including translating texts from English to other languages.
Spotify’s catalog now spans 375,000 audiobooks. However, buying audiobook hours instead of purchasing titles, as with Amazon’s Audible, lets users experiment more with what they may want to listen to, as they won’t waste money on books they end up not liking and choose not to finish.
