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Free Audiobooks Not Available Even With Premium Account

Free Audiobooks Not Available Even With Premium Account

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Mobile

My Question or Issue

Recently the free Audiobooks for premium members plan started. I went to try it out as I have a premium account and it states "locked" and mentions how I have to pay for the content. I've asked my friends and family and everyone else seems to be able to access the free Audiobooks, so I'm just wondering why I'm locked out.

 

I pay for Spotify yearly with their gift card option (buying a card from the supermarket and inputting the code instead of providing my bank details), and I was wondering if maybe this is the reason why I'm locked out? But if that's the case, I find it incredibly unfair as I'm still paying for my premium membership rights. Anyone else having issues accessing the content?

Reply
Top Answer
Maxim
Spotify Star

Hey @jonathanaddams,

 

Thanks for coming to the Community.

 

Right now, Audiobooks in Premium is available only on select plans and is limited to plan managers.

 

This means if someone joined a Duo or Family plan as a member, they won’t have access to the free listening time, but this is something that will be explored in the future to allow Family and Duo users to have more flexibility from their audiobooks access 🙂

 

For more info, you can also visit the following Newsroom article: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2023-10-03/audiobooks-included-in-spotify-premium/.

 

Hope this clears things up!

Top Answer
child-of-chaos
Regular

For those people that have paid annually:

 

Go into your subscription and sign up to premium individual by adding a card / PayPal to your account.

 

This will set up auto billing for when your annual runs out (you can still add another annual to your account before hand)

 

This will give you access to the audiobooks. The issue is the system doesn't see you as having an active subscription.

73 Replies

Cmcg16 - I tried reinstalling the app, lost my downloads, and still couldn't see the included audiobooks. Adding an extra month of premium (via gift card) worked - I guess because then the system saw my membership as active... even though I was already paid up to next year... It's a glitch in the system that they need to address.

Main person (payer) on the Premium family plan member here. I have done a reinstall and no luck. Waiting for a fix from Spotify! 

Thanks Yordan, It does answer my question when I search for a solution for why my plan members can't access the audiobooks. Feedback for Spotify would be that allowing access to the plan manager only is pretty disingenuous as the purpose for purchasing a family account is so that all members can equally enjoy Spotify and its features. 

Completely broken here. I'm the family plan manager, and my profile shows I have 15 unused hours. But going onto any book only gives me a purchase option. Frankly infuriating.

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Pixel 7 Pro

Operating System

Android

 

My Question or Issue

Most of the audiobooks are under lock, even though I have a premium account. I'm also the only person on my plan (so the plan manager). I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the app. I do have the subscription via Google Play Store. Any help would be grateful!

Same situation here. I was excited to begin listening to audiobooks on my iPhone because I have an Individual Premium account, but every book I have tried to stream is locked. I do not know how to find the available books, and even looking for an answer to this question is frustrating.

Hey Yordan, thanks for the info. Why is it just the account manager that has access to audiobooks? That seems out of sync with how family memberships work.

Same here as well. Individual Premium. Curious if anyone else having issues has a 12mo paid account? I do. Under my account profile it doesn't show any Audiobook listening time...so not sure it is even activated on my account. 

I got my issue figured out. It was my prepaid Premium subscription that was preventing me from getting the 15hrs of audiobooks. If your Individual Premium was prepaid prior to the audiobook feature becoming available, it won't appear until after the prepay expires. Support may be able to help work it out. They did for me and now I have the audiobook listening time available. They said any prepaid (gift cards) applied after Nov 1st will have audiobooks enabled. Hope this helps.

Yay! Just fixed it with help from this thread. I have the premium individual membership. I cancelled my subscription, then immediately renewed it. I restarted the apps and voila. Hope this helps someone else! What a pain.

Glad it's fixed for you. Mine isn't prepaid though, so issue remains.

Why is this? It seems ridiculous that other plan members can't access a feature that is being paid for. A Premium Duo account is clearly intended to be used by two adults sharing a house, so why can my husband access audiobooks and I can't? I'm not a child who needs my access restricted...

Are they any plans to open up this feature so both people on a Duo plan can use the feature? 

Hi,

 

I have a premium Duo plan and I am the owner.

 

I am trying to listening to the Audiobook "Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller' but it tells me it is $26.90? All other titles seem to say 'included'?

And I pay by the month

I have tried everything - I did a clean reinstall, didn't work. I created a whole new account with a new premium individual subscription from a different credit card and still not working. I'm at a loss. It doesn't even show on my account that I have any listening time and none of the books have a "included in premium" on them.

I'm in Canada if that makes a difference. Anyone help? 😞 

I have an individual premium Spotify plan through a PayPal annual pass. Contacted Spotify support and after waiting ages I was told that only pay monthly subscriptions are eligible for the 15 hours per month of audiobooks, not annual plans. It doesn't say this anywhere on their website. Big waste of time trying to access this. Why can't Spotify make it clear who is eligible and who isn't?

I had the same issue and I tried un and reinstalling the app, but it didn’t work. I am on a family premium account and I am not the moderator. How can i fix this?

 

I love how this is posted as the solution as if it’s a totally reasonable situation! 
If I’ve paid for a duo premium subscription its absolutely mental that both people on that subscription don’t have equal access to the same content 

Hi!

So, I have had an individual plan for near-on a decade. I don't have the app on my desktop anymore, so I logged into the web version and audiobooks were still showing as locked. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app on my phone and still no change.

I have an eligible plan and have reset my apps. Why am I still locked out of the free 15 monthly hours?

This is nonsense.

 

You can still get it, I have that, what you need to do is go into billing and start a subscription by adding payment details, this will start a monthly subscription once your 12 month PayPal subscription ends (just add another 12 months before then, you will not be charged) and this will give you the audiobooks.

 

I had this problem until I did this.

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