Apple Music and Spotify receive lots of attention, but the streaming music service world is much larger than those industry juggernauts. Amazon Music Unlimited doesn't have all the bells and whistles of some competing services—it lacks live radio, for example, and a recent price-hike has lessened the value for Prime members—but it offers more than 100 million songs, hi-res audio, impressive Amazon device compatibility, and a deep podcast well. Our Editors' Choice options—LiveOne, SiriusXM Internet Radio, Spotify, and Tidal—offer a few more perks, but Amazon Music Unlimited is a great all-rounder for streaming audio.
How Much Does Amazon Music Unlimited Cost?
When it debuted, Amazon Music Unlimited lacked a free listening tier, much like Apple Music and Tidal. Not anymore. You can now listen to select ad-supported playlists and thousands of stations (for example, All Hits, Fuego Latino, and Holiday Favorites) via the web, Amazon Music mobile apps, Echo smart speakers, and Fire TV devices. Spotify's free tier, on the other hand, lets you explore the service's full 100 million-song catalog. That said, some albums only appear on Spotify Free after a two-week delay.
Of course, Music Unlimited also offers the industry-standard $10.99 per month premium plan for its ad-free Individual tier. Amazon Prime subscribers receive a slight discount that drops the fee to $8.99 per month (or $89 per year)—on top of their $139 per year Prime fees. No, Music Unlimited isn't included with a Prime membership. Amazon Music Prime is. More on that later.
In addition, Amazon has a $15.99 per month (or $159 per year) Family Plan that covers six people. This offering rivals Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, and Tidal's similar packages. A massive 90-day free trial—which is cut down to 30 days for the Family Plan—is available if you want to try before subscribing. Amazon Music Unlimited's trial period outclasses rival trial periods, except for the one offered by SiriusXM Internet Radio. That service also has a 90-day free period.
Another key promotion to keep your eyes on comes around Prime Day. New subscribers get the 90-day trial period extended by an extra 30 days, giving you four months for free during this limited window. For new members, this is a sweet deal.
Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Look, Echo Show, Amazon Fire TV, and Amazon Tap owners receive a discount, too: they pay just $4.99 per month for a single device, which is just a dollar more than LiveOne's ad-free Plus plan. That's impressive. However, you cannot listen to HD, Ultra HD, or Spatial Audio with this plan. If you want to stream to multiple smart speakers, you need to upgrade to an Individual or Family plan. Amazon Music Unlimited's voice-controlled device plans come with another big limitation: You cannot use them to stream music via apps or a web browser; you must use one of the aforementioned devices.
Students who have a Prime Student account ($7.49 per month, $69 per year) receive a discount that drops the Music Unlimited fee to just $0.99 per month. Non-Prime students pay $5.99 per month.
Amazon Music Unlimited does not let you record audio. If you want that feature, your only option is SiriusXM Internet Radio, the Editors' Choice pick for streaming audio services focused on live audio.
Amazon Music Unlimited vs. Amazon Music Prime
Curious about the differences between Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Music Prime? We'll break it down. Amazon Music Unlimited is a standalone streaming music service that offers more than 100 million music tracks. Amazon Music Prime, on the other hand, is bundled in your Prime subscription. Music Prime offers the same robust musical catalog as Music Unlimited, but here's the rub: your musical selection is always shuffled. In other words, you cannot pick and play what you want. Both are ad-free listening experiences, and available on numerous devices.
If you don't care too much about shuffled tracks, and just want to dabble here and there, Music Prime is a decent option, especially since it comes included with an Amazon Prime subscription. That said, you don't have access to any of Unlimited's HD, Ultra HD, or Spatial Audio offerings.
Signing up for Amazon Music Unlimited updates the service and replaces Amazon Music Prime as your Amazon jukebox, so you needn't worry about launching the wrong streaming service.
Alexa and Amazon Music Unlimited
The increased library size makes Music Unlimited infinitely more interesting to use with Amazon devices. In the past, we'd often grown frustrated with the Echo's inability to stream songs in their entirety due to licensing issues. Now, we can command an Echo, using the Alexa voice-control technology, to fire up the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Suck My Kiss," and it does so without issue.
Amazon's smart gear also delivers behind-the-scenes commentary, dubbed Side-by-Sides. For example, you can ask Alexa to "play Side-by-Side with OneRepublic," and Ryan Tedder comments on songs from the band's newest album. The Killers, Kongos, Norah Jones, and U2 also provide Side-by-Side content. It's reminiscent of LiveOne's DNA stations, but without the deep historical context that connects past and present musicians.
In addition, you can use an Amazon device to search for songs by lyrics, fire up playlists, and search for songs to match your mood. It's cool to command Alexa to play up-tempo happy music and have the Echo blast the "Pop To Make You Feel Better" playlist.
That said, Amazon Music Unlimited lacks live music offerings. Sure, there are curated stations to enjoy, but nothing compares to the live radio offered by Sirius XM, for example. Amazon is currently experimenting with this feature with an entirely separate app called Amazon Amp, but only time will tell if the functionality crosses over into Music Unlimited.
Music Library and Audio Quality
Music Unlimited contains more than 100 million songs and dozens of stations in its catalog, including the expected Classical, Decades, Rock, and Hip-Hop stations. You can even find more obscure musical offerings within Amazon's catalog, such as video game soundtracks and fan covers. In a nice touch, any Amazon Music Prime playlists that you've created in the past carry over to Music Unlimited. You can, of course, create new ones, too.
Several parts of Music Unlimited's interface are designed to help you discover or buy music. Almost everywhere in the layout, you'll find recommended albums and playlists based on your listening habits. Thankfully, these suggestions don't feel forced upon you. In fact, we find them helpful.
The left navigation menu contains sections for Purchased and Imported music. The former has Amazon Music-purchased tracks that you can stream or download. The latter houses the files that you uploaded to Amazon's servers using the Amazon Music desktop app's now-defunct music uploading feature. Spotify, it should be noted, lets you upload music from your desktop.
We were pleased to see "Immigrant Song," "Whole Lotta Love," "Black Dog," and other Led Zeppelin classics appear on-screen after keying the band's name into Music Unlimited's large search box. They're the real tracks, too, not tribute works by bands no one cares about (though those also show up in the search results). The tracks sound good, as they stream up to a clear, 320Kbps bitrate in standard quality. This matches Tidal's Premium (320Kbps) service tier for the same $9.99 per month.
Music Unlimited has one of the best lyric features we've seen in the streaming music space. Instead of offering a static page like Deezer, Music Unlimited has karaoke-like scrolling text that moves in time with the performance. It's really cool, and we'd like other services to adopt similar lyrics integration.
Amazon Music Unlimited HD
If you want even higher-quality music streams, check out Amazon Music HD. It was originally a plan that cost an additional $5 per month, but following Apple's announcement of support for Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, that extra cost was removed. Now, all Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can enjoy more than 100 million songs in HD quality (up to 850Kbps, 16-bit at 44.1kHz) and more than 7 million songs in Ultra HD quality (up to an absurd 3,730Kbps, 24-bit at 192kHz). This measures up pretty well to Tidal's HiFi (non-compressed, 1,411Kbps FLAC) plan, which is a hefty $19.99 per month (though it has a few Master tracks at 9,216Kbps). You're getting similar quality for a solid $9.99; that's half of Tidal's price. Even better, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you only pay $8.99 per month. It's a fine deal.
For HD audio, you need a device and an internet connection that supports it. Amazon recommends a 1.5Mbps or higher connection, and headphones or speakers that support a dynamic range (20kHz+ for HD audio, 40kHz+ for Ultra HD audio). You'll also need more than a standard Amazon Echo; the company recommends the $199.99 Amazon Echo Studio, as well as hardware from Bose, Denon, Onkyo, and Polk.
You can only listen to Amazon Music HD via the Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps; you cannot stream the high-quality music via a web browser. On the upside, the apps have quality indicators to show when you're listening to an HD or Ultra HD track. You can read about the Ultra HD hardware requirements and general compatibility at Amazon's Music HD page.
The Amazon Music HD tracks sound quite good, though the improvements are mostly subtle. We found several Music HD playlists, including ones for David Bowie, Ariana Grande, Billie Holiday, and Queen, as well as many individual albums and songs. There's even a decent amount of K-Pop available on Amazon Music Unlimited; we jammed to a HD version of NCT Dream's "Hot Sauce," and an UltraHD version of CIX's "All For You."
We particularly enjoyed Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now," as John Deacon's bass lines sounded a hair deeper in the hi-res audio format. Cymbal crashes seemed to linger a bit longer, too. Note that we listened using a pair of mid-tier Audio-Technica headphones connected to a PC, a computer with a speedy landline connection. When we compared the sound using a pair of low-end earbuds plugged into our test phone, we couldn't detect a quality difference as the songs streamed over a Wi-Fi signal.
Amazon Music Unlimited's Podcasts and Video
As mentioned earlier, don't expect much non-music content from Amazon Music Unlimited, aside from a handful of comedy specials (in audio form). That said, Amazon Music Unlimited pulls a page from Spotify's playback by offering a robust podcast catalog.
Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers who love Code Switch, Dolly Parton's America, or WTF With Marc Maron no longer need to venture elsewhere for those shows. Even better, Amazon Music Unlimited features exclusive, original podcasts hosted by notable celebrities, such as DJ Khaled, Becky G, Will Smith, and Dan Patrick. It's Amazon Music Unlimited's continuing move to stay at parity with the competition, especially in the highly competitive entertainment category.
We previously dinged Amazon Music Unlimited for lacking video, so it’s nice to see that Amazon added music videos to complement its audio offerings. Music videos are organized by genre and iconic artist categories. You get a rich selection, such as Classic Hip-Hop, 90’s Pop Throwbacks, 80’s Hits, and Classic Country, alongside collections from artists like Britney Spears.
Amazon Music Unlimited Mobile Apps
Amazon Music Unlimited has Android and iOS apps. We tested the Android version on our smartphone, and discovered that it closely duplicated the Music Unlimited desktop experience. The app contains copious playlists, useful recommendations, and a music store for making purchases. It contains lyrics, too.
In addition, you can use Amazon's Alexa tech to search for songs by lyrics or to play tracks and playlists. For example, when we asked Alexa for dinner music, it supplied a laid-back, easy listening playlist.
Magical Sound Shower
Amazon Music Unlimited is a worthwhile streaming music and podcast service, and that recommendation rides almost entirely on the back of the service's Music HD catalog and Alexa, Echo, and Fire TV features. Plus, removing the Music HD fee only increases the value proposition. Amazon Music Unlimited lacks some of the content found in LiveOne, SiriusXM Internet Radio, Spotify, and Tidal—PCMag's Editors' Choice picks for streaming music services—but you won't be left disappointed, especially if you're already a part of the Amazon ecosystem.
For more, check out the Best Free Streaming Music Services and the Best Hi-Res Streaming Music Services.
Mike Williams contributed to this review.
