YouTube Premium Lite $7.99 a Month Ad-Free Tier Expands to the US

Wednesday March 5, 2025 8:51 am PST by Tim Hardwick

As expected, YouTube has announced the expansion of its $7.99 a month Premium Lite plan to the United States, following a months-long pilot phase in international markets. The new, lower-priced version of YouTube's paid video subscription service functions largely without ads, though music videos on the platform continue to include them.

General YouTube Feature Redux

Today we'll begin expanding our Premium Lite pilot to users in the US. Premium Lite gives viewers a new, more affordable way to enjoy most videos on YouTube ad-free for $7.99 per month. In the coming weeks, we'll also make Premium Lite available to all users in our current pilot countries - Thailand, Germany, and Australia.

According to the Google subsidiary, YouTube Premium Lite is aimed at people who want to consume podcasting, make-up, gaming streams, tutorials, and other core creator content on YouTube that is distinguishable from music.

It's important to note that the new Premium Lite plan does not include the ability to download and background play YouTube videos on devices. For users who want ad-free music on YouTube and YouTube Music, plus offline and background play, YouTube continues to recommend its Premium plan ($13.99 per month).

YouTube said it will continue to expand its Premium Lite pilots to additional countries this year and introduce more ways for users to get the most from their subscriptions. YouTube also revealed today that it now has over 125 million users worldwide who subscribe to YouTube Premium or YouTube Music.

Tag: YouTube

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Top Rated Comments

ls1dreams

18 months ago

Disabling background play for any of these features is just so scummy.

Also suspicious that they say "most videos"

Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Blackstick

18 months ago

I can't believe they gate background play as a "feature"... it's a god darn system API free from Apple.

Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)

surfzen21

18 months ago

My ad blockers costs $0 a month 🤔

Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)

kalafalas

18 months ago

Isn’t gating pip behind a paywall against apples rules? How do they keep getting away with this?

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

surfzen21

18 months ago

And the creators of the content you watch get nothing. You must be so proud.

It's always the ones who have never created or contributed anything of value that rationalize actions like this. Just take.

You're not wrong about that. It was partially a joke.

90% of my YouTube is watched on my TV through a firestick. I don't have an ad blocker on it.

When it comes to creators and musicians I like. I always let the ads play, except occasionally those 90+ seconds ads that I know are 10+ minutes long.

And this may shock people but I buy albums I like and shop around for digital stores that give the creator the best percentage. 😲 For example BandCamp occasionally gives a better percentage to artists and I will buy albums when they do that.

As for creators I HATE WATCH.

As for your statement, "It's always the ones who have never created or contributed anything of value that rationalize actions like this. Just take."

If you knew the depravity of corporate to corporate theft, you'd immediately retract that statement.