Family plans come to Tidal – you’ll still need a big wallet

Single-user music subscription plans aren’t designed for sharing. That’s why there’s usually some sort of simultaneous listening restriction in place. Try and listen on your PC and smartphone at the same time and one of them will stop playing. Trying to have multiple listeners maintain playlists and catalogues is also a living nightmare. That’s why Spotify and Apple Music offer family plans, discounts for additional users so that everyone can manage their own playlists and music libraries without descending into mayhem.

Finally, Tidal, the high-definition music streaming service, has begun offering Family Plans for its users. You’ll still be paying more for your high fidelity sound than other services but additional users on your account will benefit from 50% off. That also applies to the cheaper Tidal Premium plan that streams at 320kbps like Spotify and Apple Music. This means for five users on the Tidal HiFi plan you’ll be paying out £59.95 a month for 1,411kbps FLAC streams. A fairer comparison with Apple Music and Spotify will be for Tidal Premium. For five people you’ll be paying £29.95 a month, which happens to be the same as Spotify. Apple Music remains by far the cheapest of them all at £15 a month for up to six users through Family Sharing.

With Tidal’s Family Plan each additional account will be managed under your main primary account. Each additional user can have their own log in and will be able to create and manage their own playlists, libraries and settings. So essentially differ in no way to a regular account. The new Family Plan is already available worldwide. The introduction of Tidal Family Plan follows gradual updates to the service following its acquisition by Jay Z and a number of other artists and a slow start. Last month Tidal also finally introduced a dedicated desktop application whereas previously you had to use the browser-based version.