Apple Music is one of the best music streaming platforms available. It offers a variety of streaming plans, so if you're thinking of switching to Apple Music, you need to ensure that you go for what suits your needs.

In this article, we'll cover the different plans Apple Music offers together with their features, then wrap up with a guide on how you should choose what's best for you.

What Are the Different Apple Music Plans?

Apple Music offers four subscription plans: Apple Music Student, Voice, Individual, and Family. Each plan has unique features and prices. Here's a breakdown of each.

Apple Music Student

This plan is solely targeted at university students. It offers access to the entire Apple Music catalog of over 90 million songs. It enables you to download music for offline listening and the ability to listen across different devices. Alongside millions of songs, you also access over 30,000 playlists available on the platform, plus live radio.

Apple Music Student also allows you to watch music videos inside the app, view song lyrics, create playlists, and see what your friends are listening to. Equally important, the plan offers an ad-free listening experience and supports lossless audio and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, which come in handy when you want to listen to music at the best quality possible. Apple Music's Student plan costs $5.99/month.

Apple Music Voice

Apple Music icon on iPhone screen

This is the cheapest Apple Music subscription plan. It's a voice-only plan that includes access to the entire Apple Music catalog for $4.99/month. Unlike other conventional music streaming plans, the Apple Music Voice plan only allows you to play music using Siri commands like "Hey Siri, play Leave The Door Open from Silk Sonic."

The biggest caveat? You can only use the plan across Apple devices, which means you can't access Apple Music Voice on non-Apple OSes like Android and Windows.

The plan has other limitations as well. You can't download music for offline listening, create playlists, view song lyrics, or even watch music videos. Additionally, it doesn't support Dolby Atmos, Spatial Audio, or lossless audio, all of which are available on all other Apple Music plans. Even worse, it doesn't have a library, meaning you'll have to specify everything in your voice command.

Besides, the Apple Music app will only provide you with limited functionality. You get access to the Listen Now, Radio, and Search tabs, but if you want to play a song, album, or playlist, you must use Siri. If you'd like to try it, you'll need to learn how to use Apple Music Voice plan.

Apple Music Individual

This is the standard Apple Music subscription plan. The Individual plan costs $9.99/month. It includes everything you get with the student plan, like the entire Apple Music catalog in lossless audio, on-demand radio stations, and the ability to curate playlists, download music, stream across different devices, and an ad-free listening experience.

Apple Music Family

Apple Music Family costs $14.99/month. Similar to the Individual plan, the family plan has all the features available in the student plan. However, the main difference between Apple Music Family vs. Apple Music Individual and Apple Music Student is it supports up to six people on a single subscription. Each account has personalized playlists and recommendations and a unique music library.

Can You Use Apple Music for Free?

Person using Apple Music on iPhone

It's common for music streaming platforms to offer a free tier to attract new users, so questions like "Does Apple Music offer a free tier?" are pretty common. Sadly, unlike some competitors, Apple doesn't have a free plan. To make up for that, Apple offers a free trial on all plans. You can try it and cancel your Apple Music subscription before it expires. Besides the trials, there are other ways to get Apple Music for free.

How to Select the Right Apple Music Plan for Your Needs

Having a variety of options on Apple Music is good, but the problem is you can't tell which one to choose without proper research. Right out of the gate, you should go for Apple Music Student if you're a student. It offers all the perks of the Individual plan for less. Although Apple Music Voice is cheap, its limited functionality makes the dollar saving not worth it.

If you're not a student, the Individual plan might seem costly but is still much better than the voice-only plan. You should only pay for Apple Music Voice if you don't care about streaming high-quality music, viewing lyrics, streaming offline, and curating playlists but fancy using voice commands to play your music and own an Apple device.

If you have a family, Apple Music Family is worth the cost. Using a single subscription saves $44.95/month relative to six people paying for an Individual plan each.