Summary
- Apple Family Sharing reduces Apple Music costs to $2.84 per person per month when split between six people.
- Each member receives an individual Apple Music library to keep music and recommendations separate.
- Apple One Family offers Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+ for $4.33 per person per month.
There are many benefits to setting up Apple Family Sharing, from location tracking to shared calendars and photos. But arguably the most compelling reason to set it up is to slash the cost of an Apple Music subscription.
You Can Get Apple Music for $2.84 per Month
There’s one standout reason to set up Apple Family Sharing, and that’s Apple Music. This is arguably the best subscription that can be shared with Family Sharing, giving you unlimited access to over 100 million songs. If you’re a Spotify user, there are plenty of reasons why the switch might not be that hard.
An individual Apple Music subscription is currently $10.99 per month, and this is a perfectly reasonable price for access to almost all the music you could ever need, totally ad-free. This is especially true when you consider that the subscription fee is not dissimilar to what you’d pay for a single album back in the day.
With Family Sharing, however, Apple Music truly becomes a bargain. An Apple Music Family subscription costs $16.99 per month, but this can be shared with up to five other people. If you have six people who want access to Apple Music, you can all pitch in and pay just $2.84 per month each. That’s less than the price of three singles in the iTunes Store to get unlimited access to millions of songs, whenever you want.
Apple Music also works seamlessly with your Apple devices. No need to search through Spotify to find the music you want to play. You can ask Siri to play any song, album, artist, or playlist you want, and it will happen without you lifting a finger.
Costs Are Shared but Libraries Are Separate
The idea of sharing your Apple Music account with five other people may not sound that appealing. Won’t it ruin your recommendations when Grandma is listening to her Michael Bublé albums all the time on your shared subscription?
The short answer is no. With Family Sharing, every member gets their own individual Apple Music library which is kept separate from the others. This means that all your listening history and recommendations are your own.
You don’t have to worry about your Apple Music Replay being adulterated by the other members of your Family Sharing group, either. With individual Apple Music accounts, the only thing you have to share is the cost.
An Apple One Family Subscription Can Give You Even More
If you only want to subscribe to Apple Music, then the Apple Music Family subscription is the most cost-effective way to do so. However, there are some more expensive Family Sharing options that not only give you access to Apple Music, but other subscriptions, too.
The Apple One Family subscription is $25.95 per month. This gives you access to Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+. You also get 200GB of shared iCloud storage, too.
Shared between six people, this subscription works out at just $4.33 per person per month. In other words, you’re effectively getting Apple Music for half price, and Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade thrown in for free, making Apple One a real money saver.
If you want to go all out, the Apple One Premier subscription is $37.95 per month. This gives you access to Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade, but you also get Fitness+ and News+ on top. The iCloud storage cap is also raised to 2TB.
This subscription works out at $6.33 per person. In other words, it’s still less than the price of an individual Apple Music subscription and gives you four other Apple subscriptions on top. Whether you feel that it’s worth the extra for News+ and Fitness+ is up to you.
Apple Music is possibly the best of all of Apple’s subscriptions, and with Family Sharing, you can get it for less than three bucks a month. As long as you can find five like-minded people with Apple devices who you can trust to pay their share, it’s a no-brainer.