The giant of search engine Google owns the streaming site YouTube, which has raised the cost of its YouTube Premium plan by 54% in Nigeria.
The individual plan of the ad-free service, which previously cost N1,100, is now N1,700. The family plan went from N1,700 to N2,800, an increase of more than 64%.
On April 4, 2025, YouTube delivered the following email to Nigerian premium subscribers:
“To continue delivering great service and features, we’re increasing your price to N1,700.00/month.
“We don’t make these decisions lightly, but this update will allow us to continue to improve YouTube Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube.”
It is anticipated that the pricing change will become effective on the user’s subsequent billing date.
However, Nigeria was not the only country to execute the price increase. In South Africa, YouTube has likewise changed the cost of its services.
The monthly cost of YouTube Premium will increase to R81.99 for the individual plan and R149.99 for the family plan starting in the middle of the year.
Instead of paying R59.99 a month, those who simply access YouTube Music will have to pay R64.99.
As early adopters of YouTube Music’s predecessor, Music Key, which was launched in 2014, some US members who were previously paying $7.99 for YouTube Premium are also seeing their first price hike in ten years.
Although YouTube is a free site for streaming videos, its premium plan allows users to watch videos and music without advertisements and to have background music play.
YouTube said in February of last year that it has 100 million subscribers to its premium services, including YouTube Music.
This indicates that, after reporting 80 million paying subscribers in November 2022, the company saw over 20 million additional memberships in 2023.
YouTube provided a $9.99/month Red membership for ad-free watching, which also gave users access to Play Music, when Google originally introduced YouTube Music in 2015. YouTube Premium replaced the Red subscription in 2018.
The option to continue viewing YouTube on other devices, such as tablets and smart TVs, and an improved 1080p HD version were two additions made to YouTube’s Premium playback experience in the last year.
Additionally, Premium customers were among the first people to test out the company’s new generative AI tools. Additionally, it added podcasts to YouTube Music, the Samples tab, a blazingly quick method to find new music, and a fully personalized radio-building experience for users.
Google announced in February that its Google One cloud storage service will now be available in more countries worldwide, including Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, and the United Republic of Tanzania. These hikes indicate that Google services, as well as those of other international service providers like Netflix, Starlink, and Microsoft, who have been raising their prices in Africa since 2024, will now cost more.
This further demonstrates how firms both inside and outside of Africa are being impacted by the deteriorating economic climate.
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