Insights At a Glance:
- Spotify quietly removed its weekly Mini Premium plan in Kenya, likely due to its poor long-term value.
- The Individual Premium plan price has also been reduced from KES 369 to KES 339, with no announcement.
- This comes as DStv pilots a weekly subscription model, raising questions about the viability of such pricing strategies in the region.
Spotify Kenya seems to have quietly pulled the plug on its KES 99 (previously KES 69) weekly Mini plan. At the same time, the streaming giant has also stealthily reduced the price of its Individual Premium plan from KES 369 to KES 339—a move that went unnoticed by most media outlets. Until now.
If you’ve been on the receiving end of endless push notifications from the MySafaricom app, you’ll likely remember being nudged to “enjoy uninterrupted music” with Spotify Premium for just KES 99 a week. I dug up an old screenshot I captured in January showing just that. At the time, it seemed harmless—just another ad trying to nudge you toward Spotify’s paid tier.
But here’s the kicker: that KES 99 weekly plan, if renewed consistently, would cost you about KES 400 a month—KES 61 more than simply opting for the KES 339 monthly Individual plan. It’s no wonder many users didn’t bite. And now, it seems Spotify agrees.
The Mini plan has been quietly scrubbed off the official Spotify Kenya website. A quick comparison with an archived version of the site using the Wayback Machine confirms that the plan, once listed alongside the Student, Duo, Family, and Individual options, has now vanished without a trace.
Here’s a screenshot of how the website appeared a few weeks ago (via Wayback Machine) showing the Spotify Mini plan priced at KES 69:
And here’s a screenshot of the website currently, without the Spotify Mini plan and a cheaper Individual plan:
And as if to further signal a change in pricing strategy, Spotify has slashed the monthly cost of the Individual plan to KES 339. For context, we previously reported the price to be KES 369 as recently as October 2024. While it’s unclear when exactly the price drop occurred, it’s now the standard rate displayed on Spotify Kenya’s website. Meanwhile, all other plans—Student, Duo, and Family—remain unchanged.
This quiet shake-up couldn’t have come at a more interesting time. Just across the border, MultiChoice is testing a weekly DStv subscription model, hinting at a possible expansion across the region. But if Spotify’s silent retreat from the weekly pricing strategy is anything to go by, the success of such models remains uncertain. High cumulative monthly costs, even if disguised as affordable weekly payments, can backfire once consumers do the math. We’ve seen this with BNPL (Lipa Mdogo Mdogo) services in the country.
Of course, not everyone can commit to a full month’s subscription upfront, and Spotify’s Mini plan may have served that group. But for those able to budget monthly, the Individual plan is now clearly the smarter choice for non-students—and thankfully, it just got a little more affordable.
So, if you’ve been wondering why your phone no longer buzzes with that old KES 99 Spotify promo notification from MySafaricom app, now you know. The Mini plan is no more, and Individual Premium is slightly cheaper. No big announcement, no press release—just Spotify doing a quiet shuffle while we weren’t looking.
Stay tuned, though. If DStv’s weekly experiment takes off, we might just be back here reporting on another interesting twist.
