Despite its warts and growing price, I think YouTube Premium is one of the best subscription services around. I use YouTube more than any other app, including Netflix. Since I spend a big chunk of my day at my desk writing, I usually have YouTube open in another window playing something, and I know I’m not alone there. That’s why a price increase to $16 is a tough pill to swallow, and if you’re looking for alternatives, the good news is that there’s a perfect one waiting in the wings. You don’t even have to change your ways either.

I’m talking about YouTube Premium Lite, Premium’s little brother. I actually switched over to Premium Lite as soon as I could, and I haven’t looked back. For starters, Premium Lite cuts the price down to $9, which is still higher than what it was when it started, but you get almost the same service. I understand being on the fence about downgrading, but believe me, it’s worth it.

What’s included?

Ad-free YouTube, YouTube Music, background playback, offline downloads

Price

Starts at $16 a month

Live TV

No

Save the cash and go for something Lite

Come in, the water’s fine

Premium Lite and Premium share a lot of the same identity. In fact, if you don’t use YouTube Music, I really don’t know if you’d notice a difference at all. That main thing Lite lacks is a YouTube Music subscription, and that also bleeds over to music videos on YouTube. Regular Premium omits ads completely, and Lite does the same thing, mostly. The only thing I’ve noticed ads on is music videos, and other than that, it’s been almost the same experience. If you’re somebody who’s fine with dealing with the occasional ad on a music video, I don’t see the downside to downgrading to Lite.

I honestly wouldn’t even call it a downgrade. You can still download videos for offline listening and listen in the background. You don’t get access to the Premium resolution, but that’s not a huge deal to me since regular 1080p looks just fine. I do have some issues with skipping ahead in videos on mobile, and it tries to prompt me to upgrade to Premium, so I don’t know what the deal is with that. Other than that, I have no intentions of going back. I’ll happily take the few extra bucks in my pocket and get the same experience that I had.

Since price increases are the norm these days, I don’t imagine Lite will stay under $10 a month for long, but even if it climbs up a few extra dollars, I’d probably stick with it. I honestly can’t imagine going back to a world where YouTube is packed with ads. When I stopped subscribing to Twitch Turbo, I basically stopped using the site completely. You might counter this by saying that I should use an ad-blocker, but that’s not really something I can consider when I do a lot of my watching on my TV and tablet. I’m sure ad blockers are possible, but that’s not worth the hassle for me, at least not now.

There are so many subscriptions these days that I have to pick and choose what I have at any given time. What I ended up doing was pretty much cycling between things like HBO Max and Netflix, just hopping around from month to month. YouTube Premium Lite, on the other hand, is something I’ve stayed subscribed to since I use it every day. There’s just so much value baked into the subscription that I can’t quite get rid of it. Even the full-fledged Premium subscription is worth it under the right circumstances, but I’m happy with using Lite. If you don’t like how much the subscription has gone up in price, maybe a month with Lite will show you how much money you can save for largely the same experience.

Premium still has a few bonuses

You can also save money with a bundle

Like I said, the main draw of Premium over Premium Lite is the inclusion of YouTube Music. In case you’re out of the loop, YouTube Music is a music provider in the same vein as Spotify. A lot of people pay for Spotify and YouTube Premium without even realizing they could completely ditch the Spotify subscription. I understand that it’s difficult leaving behind years of playlists, and the fact that many artists reward you with early access to things if you are one of the top listeners on Spotify, but I’d still rather save the price of a whole subscription. Spotify, like many things, isn’t exactly cheap these days.

I think the biggest draw of Premium is the family membership bundle you can do. For $27 a month, you can add up to five family members to a single subscription and get ad-free viewing. Considering the fact that Premium costs $16 on its own, this is a steal even if you have just one other person sign up to it. Of course, the value simply skyrockets if you can get five people on it. The downside is that if you’re the only person who uses YouTube Premium, there’s no reason at all to use this. A lot of people use the same YouTube account in their house, especially if they’re primarily TV watchers to put something on while they’re eating or something like that. However, if you’re somebody who uses YouTube a lot of on their own time and doesn’t want their algorithm to be all over the place, this is an excellent choice. The family plan also comes with a YouTube Music subscription.

In situations where you’re the lone viewer and you don’t need YouTube Music, I see little reason to pay for the full-fat Premium subscription. Lite feels tailor-made for people like me who just want to save some money and don’t need a music plan to go with it. I do like that Music is included with the full subscription because it does help add some value, but it’s just value I don’t have much use for at the moment. I’m going to keep on using Lite as long as it remains an affordable alternative. It helps that Google has shared a lot of the features that make regular Premium great with it, so it really feels like a cheaper way to get what I was already getting. I hope the price stays locked in place for a while now because I don’t want to worry about price hikes all the time. It’s happening everywhere, so it’d be nice for something to stay stagnant for at least a year or so. I realize that’s wishful thinking, but I’m allowed to dream a little.