Since its inception, Apple’s music streaming service has come with a 3 month free trial period. That was pretty generous compared to other music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Tidal. Apple Music launched in 2015 and for that 7 year period, the free trial period has remained unchanged.
By reducing the trial period to 1 month, Apple has bought the service in line with competing platforms. Trial users still have access to the entire feature set of Apple Music. All that changes is the length of the trial. Pricing also remains unchanged when users eventually decide if they want to remain subscribed and become paying customers.
Apple continues to offer a 6 month free trial with the purchase of eligible products. These include certain models of AirPods, Beats or HomePod. It should be noted that this is a limited time offer and is not indicative of a long term strategy. It’s likely Apple doesn’t feel a need to continue offering such a long trial period. Many people are accustomed to using music streaming services at this stage. Prolonging the trial period provides customers more of an opportunity to jump ship to another free trial with a competitor. Getting customers to pay sooner might lead to them staying as a customer for longer.
Citation
Featured image: Auguras Pipiras via Unsplash