Spotify has gifted the masses with quite a surprise this fall. The streaming giant has announced that it’s tripling the length of its free-trial service. Now, instead of just 30 days of the premium. When the Spotify app debuted for iOS, I remember that free users were instantly thrown in the free-trial of Spotify premium. Does this still apply or can I listen to my ad-featured playlists like I can with the PC/Mac Spotify app? Both Spotify Premium and Apple Music are $9.99 per month, with each offering a three-month free trial for new subscribers. Students can get a regular membership for $4.99 per month.

6 Differences You Need to Know about Spotify Free and Spotify Premium

On January 4, 2018, Spotify announced on Twitter that it has 70 million subscribers. Spotify also claimed the total number of active users was up to 140 million in June 2017. That is to say, about half of Spotify users pay for the premium subscription and still half of Spotify users stick to free plan. If you are going to have a try on Spotify and has been a Spotify free user, you may wonder whether you should pay for the premium subscription or simply stick to free plan. Before you make up your mind, learn about the 6 differences between Spotify Free and Spotify Premium.

1. Playback Mode: Shuffle Play VS Different Modes

With Spotify Free, shuffle play is the only mode you can use to enjoy streaming music. With Spotify Premium, you can enjoy different playback modes including shuffle play, play in order, repeat a song and repeat a playlist/album.

Spotify 3 Month Free Trial

Many Spotify new members asked how to make a playlist play in order, the answer is to pay for the premium subscription.

2. Ad Free: No VS Yes

With Spotify Free, you can listen to any music in Spotify, but you'll hear ads between tracks both on computer and mobile. Sometimes, the ads may ruin your mood totally when you are enjoying music leisurely. With Spotify Premium, you won't get any ads no matter what device you are using.

3. Limited Skips VS Unlimited Skips

Everyone has his own music taste. Sometimes, you may hear some songs you don't like and you simply want to skip them. With Spotify Free, you can only skip 6 songs per hour, but with Spotify Premium, you can skip any songs you don't like without limitation.

4. Internet Connection Required VS Offline Listening

With Spotify Free, you must have a stable internet connection to stream the songs. Without a Wifi connection, it's almost impossible to listen to music unless you use data connection. But why would you use data connection as it definitely costs more than Spotify Premium subscription fee. With Spotify Premium, you can download songs to your PC, Mac, iOS, Android or other supported devices and listen to them offline whenever you don't have internet connection. Spotify Premium users can save mobile data by downloading up to 10,000 songs per device, on a maximum of 5 different devices.

5. Play Most Tracks VS Play All Tracks

With Spotify Free, you can listen to most tracks in Spotify library. But some new tracks or albums are only available for Premium users. The songs or albums will be grey out for Spotify Free users. And Premium users sometimes can enjoy some albums several weeks before actual release. Though it happens very infrequently.

6. Audio Quality: 160Kbps VS 320Kbps

On desktop, default streaming audio quality for Spotify Free users is Ogg Vorbis 160kbit/s while Premium subscribers can choose to switch on High quality streaming, which uses 320kbit/s. On iPhone, iPad or Android, Spotify Free users can choose either 96kbit/s or 160kbit/s while Premium subscribers have one more option which is 320kbit/s. As to streaming audio quality on Chromecast, it's AAC 128kbit/s for Spotify Free, and 256kbit/s for Spotify Premium.

Enjoy Spotify Songs on Any Devices without Limitation using Spotify Music Converter

Even if you have subscribed Spotify Premium, there are still some limitations such as only 3 devices can be used, only 10,000 songs can be downloaded and you can't enjoy Spotify offline songs on MP3 players like iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, Sony Walkman, iRiver, Sandisk Sansa, etc. or burn Spotify offline songs to CD for your car audio system.

The best solution of enjoying Spotify music without limitation is to use TuneMobie Spotify Music Converter. TuneMobie Spotify Music Converter can download Spotify songs, albums and playlists to computer and convert to MP3, M4A, WAV or FLAC with ID3 tags and metadata kept, no matter you are using Spotify Free or Spotify Premium.

With Spotify Free and Spotify Music Converter, you can create a playlist in any media player and add songs to the playlist and play in different playback modes on demand, enjoy full pleasure without ads interruption, skip any songs as you like and enjoy them offline no matter there is internet connection or not. The actual audio quality of output songs is same as source which is 160kbit/s, and you need to wait for some time when the Premium-songs are also available for free users. With Spotify Premium and Spotify Music Converter, you can enjoy high audio quality at 320kbps and enjoy the Premium-only songs on any devices whenever they are available.

After reading the 6 differences between Spotify Free and Spotify Premium, will you decide to pay for Premium subscription or stick to free tier? No matter which choice you make, Spotify Music Converter is definitely a must-have program for any Spotify users.

Part 1. How to Get Spotify 3-month Free Trial on Desktop

4 months ago, Spotify had a 30-day free trial that enables people who haven't used the free Spotify trial to test the Spotify Premium features. This could be the reason why there are so many questions asked by free Spotify users: How to get a 30-day free trial on Spotify.

The good news officially released by Spotify is that Spotify triples its free trial period. It means that you can use Spotify free trial for 3 months. It's important to note that not anyone is eligible for this Spotify Premium free trial of the 3-month period. Please make sure you have ever signed up for a Premium yet. It also works on Spotify student free trial.

Let's see how to get free Spotify Premium trial on your computer.

Step 1. Navigate to the home page of Spotify in your web browser. You will see 'Try Premium free for 3 months' as above.

Spotify Free 30 Day Trial

Step 2. Hit on the green 'Start Free Trial' button to start your free trial trip.

Step 3. It requires you to register a new Spotify account with your email address or Facebook account.

Step 4. Go back to the Spotify Premium page and fill with your payment information. Please don't worry. It won't deduct your money for the first 3 months.

Step 5. Now, please click the 'Start 3-month Free Trial Now' option to confirm your action. After that, you can enjoy all the Spotify Premium features for free.

Spotify Free Trial Limitations Trial

Note: Please don't forget to cancel the Spotify free trial before the 3 months expired. Otherwise, you will be charged the monthly subscription fee, $9.99.