High Resolution Audio’s guide to getting the best student deals for your musical entertainment.
What are the best music streaming deals for students?
Most of the major streaming platforms with the exception of Napster offer a student discount and premium subscriptions can be had for between £4.49 and £5.99 per month. You will need to be a registered student in a recognised University or College and may have to provide some form of proof like a University or NUS ID to get your discount.
Amazon Music Unlimited when combined with an Amazon Prime subscription will also give you video streaming and access to Amazon Prime discounts and next day shopping which together with its 6-month free trial for students makes it a compelling package. Throw in CD Quality and HiRes streaming and it tops the list for value for money.
Qobuz is not as famous as Amazon and Apple but with 100 million tracks, CD Quality and HiRes streaming its £4.99/month subscription price is the lowest on offer. If they delivered your shopping as well this would be an unbeatable offer.
TIDAL coming in at £5.49/month is competitively priced, has a large catalogue of CD Quality and HiRes tracks and would appeal to those who appreciate higher audio quality.
Apple Music together with its sister streaming service Apple Music Classical is another good choice at £5.99/month with CD Quality and HiRes streaming and easy integration into the Apple ecosystem with iPhones, iPads and Macs.
DEEZER is an interesting choice of streaming service with its Flow discovery feature and is well worth investigating. At £5.99/month it has over 120 million tracks in CD Quality and would not be a poor choice.
All of our top choice music streamers offer a free trial period so you have the opportunity to try all of them before committing to any one of them. None of them tie you into a contract so you are able to cancel at any time.
The best of the rest
Controversially we are not recommending Spotify in our recommendations. Despite being the grand daddy of streaming services and the leader of the pack in terms of features and content for the past decade its long promised lossless service still hasn’t arrived. If their audio quality is good enough for you then at £5.99/month it would not be a poor choice.
SoundCloud is worthwhile investigating for those interested in music discovery. A SoundCloud Go+ subscription could appeal to those who want to find new and upcoming artists many of which are not in the mainstream. Lossless streaming is not available on SoundCloud which might put off anyone concerned with high audio quality.
YouTube Music offers a student discount and is available at £5.49/month but has audio quality which is the lowest of all of the streamers here (256kbps AAC and Opus).
Other sources of cheap and free music
As a student you will have access to your University or College library and many of these have subscriptions to Freegal and Naxos which both offer music streaming. You may also be entitled to register at your local library who may also subscribe to these services. See our article Free music from your local library.
Some of the music streaming services offer a free music streaming service. These are usually ad supported and stream at a lower audio quality. See our article What is the best free music streaming service?
Music apps on smart devices can also be a useful source of free music. Probably the best of these in the UK is the BBC Sounds app which not only carries all its broadcast channels but has themed channels such as the recently launched BBC Radio 1 Anthems and BBC Radio 3 Unwind which plays calming classical music. You can also find a whole host of podcasts, audiobooks and past concerts from the BBC’s extensive archives.
It’s also well worth looking into internet radio where the choice of music where pretty much every kind of music from around the world can be found. If you have a TV with decent sound then Freeview and Sky also have many channels of music and are well worth investigating.
Music streaming services with student plans
Amazon Music/Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon Music is an ad-free on-demand service offering online access and offline playback to 100 million tracks, ad-free podcasts and thousands of playlists and stations and is included free with an Amazon Prime account. Audio quality is restricted to their lossy SD quality (256kbps). Prime membership is £8.99/month or £95 for an annual subscription. Two adults can link Amazon Prime accounts in an Amazon Household account but unfortunately Prime Music is not shareable. There is a student discount of 5o% for Amazon Prime and at the time of writing there was a 6-month free trial offer.
Amazon Music Unlimited is an ad-free on-demand service offering online access and offline playback to Amazon’s complete catalogue of 100 million tracks and podcasts. There are more than 70 million tracks in CD Quality Lossless FLAC (branded HD), millions of tracks in HiRes (branded Ultra HD) and an unknown number of tracks in spatial audio. Access to all these lossless formats are included in the basic subscription price. An individual subscription costs £10.99/month (£7.99 for Prime members) and a Family plan will set you back £17.99/month – both options available with a 30-day free trial. The Family Plan allows up to six accounts with streaming on up to six devices at once.
The cost of a student subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited is £5.99/month with a 30 day free trial offer.
Apple Music
Apple Music has been slowly catching up with the other streaming services offering lossless streaming of 100 million tracks in CD Quality, HiRes and spatial formats with no increase in its basic subscription price. With its recent addition of the free add-on Apple Music Classical combined with its easy integration into the Apple ecosystem it is an attractive proposition particularly for iPhone/iPad and Mac users.
An individual plan cost £10.99/month and a family subscription for up to six members is £16.99/month.
A student subscription to Apple Music is £5.99/month with a one month free trial.
Deezer
Deezer Premium is an ad-free on demand service offering online access and offline playback to 120 million tracks in CD Quality Lossless FLAC and this will cost you £11.99/month. A Family Plan is available for up to 6 users and a total of 13 devices across all six Deezer Family profiles and will set you back £18.25/month when paid annually. Each user can have their own profile which allows kids, teens and parents to enjoy the music they like. A couples plan for two people branded Deezer Duo is available for £15.99/month.
For those on a tight budget there is Deezer Free which is a free ad supported streaming service with no offline mode and a reduced streaming quality (128kbps MP3).
A Deezer Student plan is available at £5.99/month giving you full access to their Premium service.
IDAGIO
IDAGIO is a specialist classical music streamer and their CD Quality streaming service called Premium Audio will cost you €12.99/month. A 320kbps MP3/AAC stream plan called Basic Audio is available at €9.99/month as well as a restricted feature Free plan. Students can get a 50% discount on all plans. There is also a Premium Audio + Video plan which gives you access to exclusive videos of classical music concerts and international music competitions some of which are livestreamed. This top end plan costs €29.99/month billed yearly for €199.00. There are no family or couples plans.
Qobuz
Qobuz has two subscription tiers, both of which offer a Family plan. For the smaller family they offer a Duo subscription for couples and more information can be found here.
Studio – This gives you access to over 100 million tracks in lossless FLAC many up to 24-bit/192kHz. There is an offline listening feature in this package. An individual subscription comes in at £10.83/month and a Family subscription for 6 come in at £17.99/month on an annual subscription.
Sublime – You get everything in the Studio package plus a discount of 60% on HiRes downloads. An individual subscription comes in at £14.99/month and Family subscriptions for 6 come in at £17.99/month on an annual subscription.
Qobuz have recently introduced a Student Offer which gives you full access to their Studio package for £4.99/month with a free trial of one month.
SoundCloud
SoundCloud offers individual plans (SoundCloud Go+) starting at £10.99/month with a student discount of 50%. There is a restricted SoundCloud Go plan offering limited access to the full catalogue which comes in at £5.99/month. However, there are no couples and family plans available.
Spotify
Spotify offers Individual, Duo, Family and Student subscription plans. A Premium individual subscription is £11.99/month and a Duo subscription is £16.99. A Premium Family subscription for 6 comes in at £19.99/month.
A Student subscription is available for £5.99/month with a 1 month free trial.
TIDAL
TIDAL recently amalgamated its HiFi and HiFi Plus plans into one low priced tier offering Individual, Family and Student options.
Individual – this offers 110M+ tracks in lossless, HiRes FLAC and Dolby Atmos; Ad-free, offline listening and personalized mixes, editorial playlists, and Live sessions at £10.99/month. MQA files are still available when these have been supplied by the artists’ record companies.
Family (up to 6 members) – there are 110M+ tracks in lossless, HiRes FLAC and Dolby Atmos; Clean playlists and curated content for kids and each member has an individual account. Family plans cost £16.99/month.
A Student plan is available for £5.49/month with a 30-day free trial available.
YouTube Music offers access to an ad-free streaming service with over 100 million songs, videos and live performances. An individual plan cost £10.99/month with a Family plan for up to 6 individuals coming in at £16.99/month. A Student subscription can be had for £5.49/month but there is no couples plan. Audio quality is 256kbps AAC and Opus which is the lowest of all of the streamers here.
Music streaming services without student plans
Napster
Napster has come a long way from its peer to peer file sharing days. It now offers an ad-free on-demand service with a catalogue of over 110 million tracks some of which are now lossless for £10.99/month. A family plan for up to 6 accounts is available for £14.99/month. There are no student or couples plans.
