How long until restrictions apply with Spotify Free?

[Joentje71]

Plan: Free

Country: the Netherlands

Device: Android tablet or phone

My Question or Issue

If I subscribe for a Spotify Free subscription, how long will it take before restrictions (only 6x skip song, advertisements) are applied? Will I get some-sort-of-premium-trial the first week / 2 weeks / month / 3 months?

Thank you!

[Billy-J]

Hey @Joentje71, thanks for reaching out to the Community!

With Spotify Free, you're able to stream music with advertisements, and you may also get an option to skip 6x songs within an hour.

You would need to upgrade to Premium, to remove the advertisements, and the skip limit, and you will also gain other features like being able to listen on-demand, listen to music offline, and skip as many times as you want. There is more information on the Premium features here. 

I hope this helps. I'll be here if you have any further questions!

[Joentje71]

Unfortunately, your answer didn't fit my question.

I created a free account, but I still could skip unlimited songs and did not get any advertisements at all. That is why I asked this forum: "how long does it take, after creating a free account, for the limits to apply?"

Meanwhile, today I got a message: your 14 day trial has expired. So I think somehow I got 14 days without restrictions in my free account. I can't recall to have selected such an option, and I also intentionally did NOT apply for one month premium trial. I just created a free account. So why my free account had no restrictions for 2 weeks? I don't know!

Question (1): What happened my first 2 free weeks?

Strange enough, the free account that I created only 2 days ago for one of my children, IMMEDIATELY got advertisements and she can only shuffle play and not select a particular track to play. At least, that's how it works on her smartphone. On her tablet however, she CAN select a particular song.
Question (2): Are my findings with my child's account correct?

Last question. With my free account, after two weeks without restrictions, I now can now also only shuffle play. I can NOT select a particular track and play it. Looks like after two weeks I finally get the restrictions that my daughter got the first day of her free account? Even with my own compiled playlist, I can only shuffle play. Why? shuffle play is NOT one of the restrictions that comes with a free account, or am I wrong? If I access the website on a windows system, I CAN search and play the tracks I want, so shuffle play is not applied there.

Question (3): Can a free account only shuffle play on smartphones? What exactly are the limits of a free account? It's a bit of a shame that this is all so vague! 

Kind regards,
Jeroen

[Joentje71]

and question (4): my wife has spotify premium; will spotify family remove all above problems?

[Eni · Accepted solution]

Hey there @Joentje71, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

Regarding your first question, we can confirm that there might be some short trials on new accounts but those can vary across markets and accounts.

On another note, with Spotify free on mobile, you can't choose to play a track on demand and you can only listen in Shuffle mode. You can check all the differences about Spotify's free experience on the mobile app here. However, it's possible to play on demand on the desktop and tablet apps, as well as on the web player.

Lastly, you're right, if your wife subscribes to Premium Family, she can then invite you and your daughter to join the plan so all of you can enjoy all the Premium features. For more info, we suggest that you check this article. 

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Joentje71]

Thank you for your accurate answers!

The variation of trial conditions for the similarly created new accounts made it very confusing here. Meanwhile we subscribed to Spotify Family and we all can play songs without shuffle now!

[Yordan]

Hey @Joentje71,

Awesome! We're glad to hear that everything worked out! You can now enjoy your favorite music without issues.

The Community is always here if there's anything else you need assistance with.
 

Cheers!