Web Playback SDK not working with Spotify Lite / Premium Mini despite product=premium

[Foram_009]

Plan
Premium

Country: India

I’m trying to integrate Spotify playback in my application using the Spotify Web API and the Web Playback SDK, but I’m running into an issue with certain accounts.

What’s happening

I connected a Spotify Lite account to my app and successfully authenticated using OAuth. When calling the Web API endpoint /me to get the user profile, the product field returns:
"product": "premium"

This is shown in this screenshot:

However, when I try to initialize or play audio via the Web Playback SDK, playback fails immediately and triggers:
account_error: “This functionality is restricted to premium users only.”

Key questions:

• Is Spotify Lite / Premium Mini officially supported by the Web Playback SDK?
  The behavior suggests it is not — but the /me API returns "premium", which is misleading.

• Why does the /me product field return premium for Lite / Mini plans if playback is restricted?
  This inconsistency is causing confusion in client-side logic.

• Is there any reliable way to distinguish between full Premium accounts and Lite / Mini plans via the Web API?
  I need a way to programmatically detect when to enable/disable Web Playback SDK usage for users.

[Ximzend · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Foram_009 👋

Thanks for bringing this up in the Spotify Community. This is a really good question, and I can see how the situation might be confusing. The key detail here is that the Web Playback SDK requires a full Spotify Premium subscription in order to work. Mobile-only premium plans, such as Spotify Lite or Premium Mini, unfortunately aren’t supported.

That’s why you’re running into issues: Lite and Mini are designed specifically for mobile use, while the Web Playback SDK is meant for browser-based playback and developer integrations. Since those mobile-only plans don’t include the necessary access, the SDK won’t function with them.

You can find this requirement in the official docs here: Spotify Web Playback SDK documentation.

As for your follow-up question about how to detect these kinds of subscriptions programmatically: I don’t have an answer to that part. The documentation doesn’t provide guidance on distinguishing between full Premium and mobile-only Premium types.

I know it’s not the most useful answer, but hopefully this clears up the "why" behind the limitation.