Recently, YouTube Premium had its largest price increase in years

The YouTube Premium family plan is getting a major price hike in several countries. The monthly cost of the subscription will jump from $17.99 to $22.99 in the US and Canada, and from £17.99 to £19.99 in the UK. The former increase represents a 30% price hike. Australian users, whose Premium family plan currently costs AU$22.99 per month, won't be affected by the increase. 

YouTube is raising the price of its Premium family subscription “to continue delivering great service and features”, according to a notification email sent to existing subscribers. The increase represents the first price change to any tier of YouTube Premium since 2018. 

The price hike comes as a surprise, especially since YouTube just announced a new feature called “YouTube Premium Family” which allows up to six accounts to use the same subscription. It’s unclear how the price increase will affect uptake of the new feature. 

After Google's public experimentation with what actually constitutes YouTube Premium, the family plan price has increased. The service offers fee-paying subscribers ad-free viewing, background playback, and the ability to download videos for offline use, but in recent months, Google has flirted with the introduction of a resolution paywall for free YouTube users. Thankfully, Google confirmed in October that it had ended its resolution paywall trial. However, if the company decides to hike the price of YouTube Premium across the board, affected subscribers will be hoping to get more for their money than they do with the current Premium package.