If you’re addicted to Spotify and haven’t murdered your significant other or roommate during lockdown, good news—the company announced today that it’s launching its $13 Premium Duo plan in the U.S. and 55 other markets.
You might remember that Spotify started piloting this plan in March last year in five markets, and from the looks of it, not much has changed about Premium Duo now that it’s gone global. Under the new pricing structure, two people who live at the same address can now get their own Premium accounts but split the same bill. Spotify says you can listen independently of each other, without interruptions—one of the major issues of sharing an account. It also means your partner or roomie’s shitacular taste in music won’t mess up your individual recommendations. (My ex ruined my recommended playlists on my Spotify Premium account for years with their nu-metal garbage.)
Another feature that made it out of Spotify’s test run is the Duo Mix—basically a Spotify Discovery-esque playlist that’s based on both subscribers’ preferences. It’s sort of like taking the Venn diagram of your music tastes and making a list of whatever’s in the middle, with the option to toggle between “chill” and “upbeat” moods.
The plan is somewhat geared toward couples, as like the Spotify family plan, you have to live at the same address. However, that address requirement means long-distance lovers are out of luck and will have to make a romantic joint playlist the old fashioned way. To enroll, you can either visit your account settings or go to the specific Duo website. That said the discount isn’t that much different if you’re a couple already on the $15 family plan—you save about a dollar each.
Premium Duo is just the latest feature Spotify’s rolled out during the pandemic to hopefully ease tension with the people you’re stuck with. In May, the company introduced a new feature called Group Sessions, which grants multiple people the ability to control playback over a single playlist. That same month it finally lifted the cap on how many songs you could add to your library on the service. And, just yesterday, the company rolled out live lyrics to an additional 26 countries.