YouTube Premium comes with plenty of features. Unfortunately, many people just want a legal and ethical way to remove ads while still supporting the creators they love. YouTube is now testing a "Premium Light" subscription for just that.
What is YouTube Premium Lite?
Currently, a YouTube Premium subscription will set you back $11.99 a month after the free trial. It includes ad removal, YouTube Music Premium, video downloads for offline viewing, and background playback on mobile. The new Premium Light tier, which a Resetera user spotted, drops everything but ad removal and decreases the price to €6.99 ($8.32).
Unfortunately, YouTube is currently only testing the new subscription in select parts of Europe. The original report spotted it in the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Later, YouTube confirmed to The Verge that it is testing the new plan in Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Norway.
It sounds like the subscription will offer the same ad-free experience as the more expensive plan, as the wording on the Premium Lite page is very similar to the full YouTube Premium page. Both mention "ad-free YouTube ... on your mobile device, desktop, or enabled TV."
The company hasn't announced details regarding a potential release in other parts of the world yet. If it's successful for YouTube in the test regions, we might be able to unlock an ad-free YouTube experience for a lower price in the future.
Is YouTube Premium Lite a Good Deal?
As far as the value proposition, a Netflix Basic plan goes for $8.99 a month in the US, which means that YouTube Premium Lite's test price of around $8 is competitive (assuming it launches for that amount). Hulu's ad-free plan is comparable to the full YouTube Premium price at $11.99 a month, putting Premium Light in a good price range. HBO Max is $14.99 per month without ads, though that comes with new release movies.
A basic subscription to a single channel on Twitch will set you back $4.99. That gets you ad-free viewing on that channel, so getting the same experience on the entirety of YouTube for a little more makes a lot of sense from a value perspective.
It comes down to how much YouTube you like to consume. If Google's video platform takes up a hefty chunk of your entertainment time, then the Lite subscription is priced rather competitively compared to other ad-free options out there.