How do I buy more listening hours for audiobooks

[LMoores]

We have a Premium Family Plan. My husband is trying to listen to an Audiobook but he got cut off because apparently there are only a certain number of hours per month you can listen? Other than the fact that this makes zero sense (WHY???) I am trying to purchase Top-up Audiobook Hours for him. I found this information:

How to purchase top-ups

You can purchase top-ups with a credit/debit card or PayPal.

To top up on your account:

1. Go to your Account overview page.
2. Under Subscription, select Audiobook listening time.
3. Select Top up.

HOWEVER when I go to the "Subscription" there is not an "Audiobook listening time" option to select. The options are: 

Subscription

Available plans

Manage your plan

Manage members

Cancel plan

I have searched in all of these segments but am unable to find the "Audiobook listening time" link that is supposed to be there. Does anyone know about how I can make this happen???

[asilikeit]

Please also report back that the cost of buying an extra 10hours of listening to Audiobooks (top up) costs as much as a credit from audible or downpour - a credit gives access to the entire audiobook (purchased). So Spotify is a rip-off, there aren't many audiobooks that take less than 10hours.

[EclecticMomNH]

Where is there a log of "top up" hours used? I should have carry over time but there's no record to check showing how much has been used.

[Susan62]

I also should have carry-over time, but there's no means to monitor this that I can see. I can see my current time used for this month but not what I've used to date. That is distinctly unhelpful.

[Susan62]

• You are so right. One owns the book on Audible for the top up price on Spotify. While the audiobook option is a good addition on Spotify, its limitations makes one angry. As someone mentioned here, it reflects poorly on Spotify that one must wait many days to finish listening to one audiobook or must pay too handsomely to rent, not buy, more hours to finish. God forbid if you need to 'rewind' to find something that you missed because that will just use more of your monthly allotted listening time! Spotify should allow at least one full book per month for listening purposes. The cost for top-up rental hours should be much cheaper. Otherwise, Spotify is unnecessarily creating many disgruntled customers, due to their poorly executed policies, who might take their business elsewhere.

[Psotifysucks]

You know what's also ridiculous? "You can't buy extra hours in the app." You offer this already annoyingly restricted service designed to get people hooked on reatricted content in order to collect more money... And then you don't offer a viable way to purchase said content. Log onto the website and spend 15 minutes of my life trying to work out how to give you my money? Yeah, no. I'll just go with audible instead. It flabbergasts me how massive companies can have such **bleep** UX design.

[bredd84]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Operating System

iOS 17.2.1, Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I'm sure this has been brought up multiple times and this is more of a rant than anything else. I recently came across the audiobooks and have thoroughly enjoyed listening while driving to work. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts on 1.8x speed and get through them fairly quickly. I started my second book and got a third of the way through before it stopped me saying I've run out of hours. I did get to finish my chapter though, how nice. My rant is not only with Spotify, but Audible as well. Why do I need to pay for the service, but then also pay for the book? Audiobooks are the only things done this way. Why is that? Why are they locked behind a second paywall? We don't have to pay for movies or albums, why audiobooks? I think this set up is quite strange and when I found audiobooks in Spotify, I got excited. That has quickly changed though. 

[29094130]

I agree with your statement that this is not transparent pricing. 
The frustration of the ceiling being hit half way through a book does not make you think yippee I’ll top up now it just makes you feel like you want to leave that service which works differently for all other services it provides. 

[Charlibear13]

So I had the same issue, you must access Spotify on a web browser > account > manage subscriptions to buy the Top-up. It cannot be purchased from the app, which I find super inconvenient. 

[Adamfox2707]

The audiobook top up prices are ridiculous and it is criminal to charge for re-listening to parts of the book that you have already heard.

If the same process was applied to music or even a film/TV subscription service it would be out of business in matter of weeks.

I have always seen Spotify as innovative and competitive but in this case neither of these are true. 

There are cheaper audiobook alternatives out there with much more flexible listening terms. Spotify could have the money I spend on these but never will while the current process is in place. 

[Susan62]

Well that's just weird. @Billy-J saying he'll pass your information on, like he's an employee, and then closing, stressing he is not an employee of Spotify. And asking for a 'like.' Weird! Induced @KMak3 to reply to him as though he WERE an employee. Nope. Our concerns go into the ether or to posers. 🙁

[Mfarrell1]

15 hour limit on audiobooks per month for your highest paying customers is a scheme designed to take more from your customers and shows how crappy of a company you can be.

Charging $12 for 10 more hours so your premium customers can finish their books in the same month confirms the greed.  So the incentive is not to listen to Spotify? 

Music isn't capped for the premium customer? Why the audiobook?  Paying $16 a month for the premium family plan is more than enough. 

Find your 15 hours arbitrary and a scheme.  Poor customer experience.  Have to wait 9 days to finish my book now, cool....thanks.  

[Adrienne2001]

We need more than 15 hours of read time for an audio book a month. I don’t know about yall but I read more than two books a month. My one book I’m listening to right now is 17 hours I started it 2 maybe three days ago and I’m already passed halfway through with it.

[user-removed]

Hi, I just paid for the extra audiobook hours but when I go back to the app to resume listening I’m very the original message to say I’m out of hours. I e checked the payment has gone through and it’s showing the hours allocated in my account but app not registering the top up. Any suggestions?

[Davidwalljones]

I very nearly cancelled Spotify  --- what a disaster they have made with audiobook --- manager only in premium then silly top ups  makes one more reason to leave and try another service.

[Davidwalljones]

You can get Audible book @ £5 per moth or £7 to purchase better than using this top up -- ! book free when you initially join

[chattermaxls91]

If I paid the couple extra dollars for the audiobook titles, why am I having to pay again to finish listening to it? I already "own" the audiobook, so why are my listening hours impacted? It's like if I bought a physical copy and then half way through I had to pay a fee to finish reading the physical copy I already paid for. The title had to be purchased separately because it was not part of the premium subscriber package, which makes sense from a licensing/distribution standpoint. Please explain why the audiobook hours system is set up to impact titles that need to be bought separately anyway? Thank you.

[Ro331]

Hello Community

i have bought a top up for an audiobook and used 6 hours of my 10 purchased. I would like to use the remaining time to start to listen to another title, but am not getting this as an option on the app. Please advise? Thank you 

[Eni]

Hey there @Ro331, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this here in the Community. 

Could you let us know if you're able to play any other audiobook? 

Also, could you send us a screenshot of what you're seeing when you're trying to play the audiobook you mentioned? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert image option in the post editor. Make sure not to send any private info.

We'll be on the lookout.

[Ro331]

Hello

thank you very much for your response to my query 

I can listen to any audiobook which is marked as “included in premium”. This book isn’t one of those

i have 4 hours of credit left which I would like to use to listen to it but when I click on chapter one, it’s a locked symbol and I get this message 

 

[Maria]

Thanks for the additional info @Ro331!

It looks like the book you're trying to play is part of the audiobooks available for purchase only. Keep in mind that the titles available in the audiobooks subscriber catalog may vary from time-to-time. This means that the titles that are included in the Premium plan and top-up catalog may not be the same as those available for purchase on Spotify.

You should, however, be able to purchase that book right away, if you'd like. You can do it directly from the Web Player or by following the steps on this page.

Hope this clears things up. Cheers!