Spotify currently host over 70 million tracks. We’d love to see a lossless option from SoundCloud soon. With the competition for hi-fi music streaming from streaming services such as Amazon Music and Apple Music, it’s likely Spotify will drop any initial plans they had to include a price increase for the feature. Spotify have announced a HiFi streaming tier, however we are still waiting for the feature to launch, and have no word yet on the maximum bitrate available or potential price increase above Premium memberships. Spotify Premium currently maxes out at a comparable 320kbps MP3. Spotify Free is the audio company’s ad-supported music streaming model, while for a monthly subscription Spotify Premium gives listeners all the features they need.įor this comparison we’ll be looking at SoundCloud Go+ and Spotify Premium as these most closely represent the features users are after from a typical music streaming service today.īoth streaming services offer the same basic features such as ad-free listening, offline and on-demand playback, letting you listen to any song, anywhere, with unlimited skips.Īrtists can upload to SoundCloud in just about any audio format, however it will be compressed down to 256kbps AAC for SoundCloud Go+ subscribers. In the US, for individuals, Spotify comes in two flavours: Spotify Free and Spotify Premium. SoundCloud Go unlocks ad-free and offline listening, while SoundCloud Go+ unlocks licensed music.

As well as independent creators, SoundCloud now also work with labels for licensed music from major artists. Today they offer creators various memberships for upload, insight, promotional and distribution tools.

Without the need for labels or distributors, and a somewhat lax copyright system, this has lead to SoundCloud amassing a huge number of tracks largely from the artists themselves. Launching in 2007, SoundCloud allows anyone to upload and share music directly on the platform. SoundCloud are probably one of the most different music streaming services in the market today.

We compare the features, cost and catalogue of the two streaming services to help you decide where to spend your subscription money.

Soundcloud vs spotify for artists