Google’s premium music streaming offering has been a bit of a mess. Here’s how to untangle your overlapping Google Play Music and YouTube subscriptions.
Both services offer the ability to sign up and receive the benefits of the other, which could result in some people being double billed.
Earlier this year, Google did some re-arranging and renamed Google Play Music to YouTube Music and YouTube Red to YouTube Premium. Yeah, it’s a bit hard to follow.
If you’ve signed up for any of Google’s premium plans and needed to cancel one, follow these steps.
If you already have a Google Play Music subscription and have subscribed to YouTube Premium, you should cancel your old Google Play Music (now YouTube Music) subscription from the Google Play Store. You can do that by tapping on the Play Store, then the menu on the top left, and finally subscriptions.
If you accidentally signed up for both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, you can cancel the YouTube Music subscription because it is included in YouTube Premium. For iOS users, you’ll need to cancel the subscription through the YouTube iOS app.
If you’re unsure of which subscriptions you have, check by viewing the Paid Memberships section of YouTube. That page will show you any active subscriptions you may have and their billing source, either through Google Play, YouTube, or iTunes.
Google Play Music subscribers will probably want to switch over to the YouTube Music app, as it is currently ranked #3 in the Play Store while GPM is ranked #26 and steadily dropping. Google has a history of developing new products that do the same thing as the old version to kill it off.
With the company spinning out a confusing mess of services, a software-level solution from Google would be nice. In the meantime, try to avoid getting trapped into a double-billing (or triple-billing) situation.
I signed up for Google Play Music shortly after launch. When YouTube Red was introduced and bundled with Google Play Music I got both for the price of my Music subscription. I was then grandfathered into the lower price of $10 when they increased the rate, introduced YouTube Music, and changed YouTube Red to YouTube Premium.
They have stated that eventually you should be able to transfer your Google Play Music playlists over to YouTube Music before they shut down Play Music and if you’re already paying $10 then you’re grandfathered into that lower price so long as you don’t stop your subscription.
TLDR: If you’re already paying for Google Play Music at the lower price then you already have YouTube Premium AND YouTube Music.