Spotify announced the expansion of its premium audiobooks service. The service will now offer two new plans that provide subscribers with additional listening hours and enable other family members to access it.

The options are currently exclusively accessible to Spotify Premium users in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, following a series of initial experiments in Ireland and Canada.

Users in the United States have the option to purchase 15 hours of listening as a standalone offering through an Audiobooks Access Plan. However, these upgrades enable users in other markets to personalize their access to meet their specific requirements.

The initial new plan, Audiobooks+, provides Premium subscribers, or those who administer the household’s Family or Duo plan, the opportunity to add 15 hours of listening per month to the base plan. Currently, Spotify’s Premium plans include 15 hours of audiobook listening.
However, this new plan doubles that amount, ensuring that subscribers can complete lengthier volumes or a few shorter ones within a month.

The second new plan, Audiobooks+ for Plan Members, will be an even more welcome addition for those who wish to share access to audiobooks.
Members of the Premium Family and Duo plans will also have the ability to access 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening.

Spotify informed TechCrunch that comparable initiatives will be implemented in the United States at a later date.

In order to utilize the feature, plan members must initially request audiobook access from their plan manager, who will then acquire the new add-on. In the event that members exhaust their listening time prior to the subsequent billing cycle, they may purchase a one-time top-up of 10 hours.

The pricing for the new options was not disclosed by Spotify, as it is contingent upon the market. According to a spokesperson, consumers in those markets may obtain additional information by visiting the Spotify.com/audiobooks page.

In December, HarperCollins, a prominent publisher, observed that Spotify was in the process of enabling other family members to access audiobooks through shared plans.
HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray stated at a conference that the market had the potential for further growth, as Spotify was at the time addressing a “technical issue” with family plans that restricted audiobooks to the credit card holder under the plan.

Last quarter’s earnings report disclosed that the streaming service was collaborating with ElevenLabs to increase the number of books narrated, which included the translation of texts from English to other languages. The company views AI as an additional opportunity for growth.

Spotify’s audiobook collection currently comprises 375,000 titles. However, purchasing audiobook hours rather than titles, as is the case with Amazon’s Audible, allows users to explore a wider range of potential listening options.
This approach eliminates the need to invest in books that they ultimately dislike and choose not to conclude.