Shopping for music streaming services can seem daunting. You’ve decided you don’t want to deal with annoying ads, but now what? You want the most for your money-high sound quality, a wide selection of music, and it has to be easy to use. We’re comparing Amazon Music to Spotify to help make your buying decision easier. For more comparisons like this between Spotify, Apple Music, and many other music streaming platforms, check our Comparisons Page.
- Ease of Access
- Pricing
- Music Library
- UX and Interface
- The Social Factor
- Sharing Made Simple
- Quality of Audio
- Tuning Into The Radio
- Personalization
- Final Winner Between Amazon Music vs. Spotify
- Final Table Score: Amazon Music vs Spotify
- Transferring music between music services
In a hurry? Quick summary about Amazon Music vs Spotify
Only one can come up in the battle between these two giants, but it may depend on where you stand. Suppose you are an Amazon Prime customer with any of its Echo devices. In that case, Amazon Music may be a good choice for you due to its integration with other Amazon devices and shopping experience. However, if you’re not an Amazon customer, Spotify takes the lead regarding pricing, user experience, and sharing features.
Now, are you curious about what makes each music streaming service stand apart from its competitors? Keep reading and find everything about this final comparison between Amazon Music vs Spotify.
Ease of Access
When streaming music, you want your tunes readily available. Both Amazon Music and Spotify make it easy to listen wherever you are. Both offer apps for iOS and Android phones and devices and can be accessed by Windows or Mac users, or even via desktop web browser.
You can play Spotify from all major digital assistants, including Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri. Amazon Music pairs perfectly with Amazon’s Alexa-enabled devices, but you cannot access it through Google devices.
Winner: Spotify
Pricing
Is Spotify better than amazon music? Their pricing structure might indicate which one comes out on top.
When comparing Amazon Music to Spotify start by looking at the free plans, even if you have every intention of paying for a premium subscription.
Spotify’s Free plan offers access to the entire library content, while Amazon Music does not. Neither offer ad skips nor offline streaming. Both limit your song skips, Amazon to a maximum of 6, and Spotify to 6 an hour.
Their pricing structure was identical, where their plans aligned until Amazon Music announced pricing increases for Individual and Student plans beginning February 21, 2023.
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | Free | Free |
| Price for offline mode, no ads | $10.99 per month | $9.99 per month |
| Duo plan | N/A | $12.99 per month |
| Single Device | $4.99 per month to use only on echo devices | N/A |
| Family | $15.99 (up to 6 users) | $15.99 per month (up to 6 users) |
| Student | $5.99 per month | $4.99 per month (includes Hulu w/ads and SHOWTIME) |
| Annual Plan | Not mentioned in rate hike | Individual $99 |
It seems Spotify not only offers a few more options but it’s also cheaper on the most popular plans.
Winner: Spotify
Music Library
Spotify leads the music streaming industry in song selection where many streaming services are concerned. Spotify offers more than 82 million songs and 4.7 million podcasts, which is more than enough to keep most people busy. But Amazon has them beat.
Amazon has over 100 million songs in lossless HD quality and millions in Ultra HD. They claim the most extensive catalog of ad-free major podcasts, too. Amazon also provides a myriad of videos and livestreams.
Either way, that is a lot of songs that you can use to build amazing playlists.
Often people don’t want to switch music streaming service providers because of how much time and effort they’ve put into creating the perfect playlist. With Tune My Music you never have to feel trapped with a subscription you no longer want. We make migrating your playlists easy and in a few seconds for FREE!
Winner: Amazon
UX and Interface
Both Amazon Music and Spotify offer a similar user experience. It’s simple to use and clearly marked. You can search in the Search bar or browse through their popular selections, divided up by topic for ease of use.
Spotify has the drag-and-drop feature, where you can click on a new song, hold and drag it over to an existing playlist to the left part of the dashboard that contains all your playlists. Amazon, on the other hand, doesn’t offer this cool feature, but when you click on a song in Amazon, a plus sign appears asking if you want to add it to a playlist.
Winner: Tie
The Social Factor
Is Spotify better than Amazon Music when it comes to the social factor? Spotify practically begs you to share your content on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat; that’s how easy it is to use. And while you can add it with Amazon Music, it isn’t easy.
Spotify allows you to share your content on Instagram and Facebook stories or post album art on Snapchat, which will instantly link your friends and followers to the song.
Amazon Music makes it easy to share your content via social if you’re the artist. However, Amazon doesn’t provide clear directions on how to share content through social media if you’re an average listener.
Winner: Spotify
Sharing Made Simple
We want the whole world to know when we do something we’re proud of. That’s why being able to share your playlists easily is an important feature to have for any premium music streaming service. Both Spotify and Amazon Music allow you to conveniently share links to your playlists directly or via email and social media.
While both offer collaborative playlists, Amazon requires a premium subscription for all collaborating.
Winner: Spotify
Quality of Audio
If premium sound is what you want, this is where you will want to pay close attention when comparing Amazon Music to Spotify. At first glance, it seems as though they are on equal footing. Spotify offers five audio quality settings-Automatic, Low, Normal, High and Very High, and Amazon Music provides five audio quality settings-SD, HD, Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos, or 360 reality Audio. However, Spotify ranges from 24kbps (Low) to 320kbps (Very High), making Amazon sit back and laugh.
Amazon Music Unlimited completely outperforms Spotify with its HD audio. This setting can get you CD-quality audio up to 850kbps. As mentioned previously, Amazon offers millions of songs with Ultra HD, too, which delivers “better than CD-quality audio” at 3730kbps.
Winner: Amazon
Tuning Into The Radio
Every library has playlists showcasing old-school favorites and the latest and greatest hits. But what about when you want something new? That’s where music discovery comes in.
Both Amazon and Spotify have perfected the algorithm, pairing you with all the best songs they think you’d love the most. They showcase these songs in mixes, playlists, songs, and albums. I’d give a slight edge to Spotify in this area, but not by much.
While Spotify’s algorithm is better, Amazon does a much better job presenting its findings to you. However, you may find yourself listening to those same tracks on repeat. This is because Spotify does better shuffle your tracks, whereas you might find that Amazon plays the same song almost back to back.
Winner: Tie
Personalization
When comparing Amazon Music to Spotify in the area of personalization, the competitors are on equal footing. Both streaming services allow you to easily create customized playlists that you can share with friends and family. You can curate the playlists their algorithms suggest to you as well.
Where Spotify wins is that Amazon does not allow you to add a cover and description to your playlist, where Spotify does.
Winner: Spotify
The Final Winner Between Amazon Music vs. Spotify
This was a tough one. And it really comes down to what features are the most important to you. If sound and music selection are what you care about the most, then go with Amazon Music, especially if you are an Amazon echo user. On the other hand, if price, user experience, and the sharing features are most important, then Spotify should be your go-to.
Considering all 9 areas analyzed here, Spotify is slightly ahead because of easy access, social features, and pricing.
Final Table Score: Amazon Music vs Spotify
| | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Access | 95 | 93 |
| Pricing | 95 | 93 |
| Music Library | 90 | 95 |
| UX | 93 | 93 |
| Social Factor | 95 | 90 |
| Sharing | 90 | 90 |
| Quality of Audio | 90 | 100 |
| Radio | 92 | 92 |
| Personalization | 95 | 90 |
| Score | 94 | 93 |
Transferring music between Spotify and Amazon Music, and any other music platform
If you have another streaming service and we’ve convinced you to switch to Amazon Music or Spotify, don’t worry about leaving your playlists behind. With Tune My Music we make transferring your tunes effortless. We support Spotify, TIDAL, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, and many more.