Tidal cuts high-res music streaming prices to $10.99 a month

In a major shakeup of its music streaming plans, Square-owned Tidal has dropped its priciest subscription tier and folded its perks, including high-resolution and spatial audio tracks, into its more affordable “HiFi” plan. 

With the move, Tidal’s new $10.99-a-month subscription offering—now called simply “Tidal”–essentially matches those of Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music. 

In a support page on its website, Tidal said its plan changes would take place “globally” on April 10.

This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best music streaming services.

Tidal’s new plan effectively combines its previous HiFi and HiFi Plus plans, while keeping the cheaper HiFi pricing.  

Tidal’s old $10.99-a-month HiFi plan served up music tracks that were lossless but only CD-quality (16-bit/44.1kHz). 

For high-resolution tracks up to 24-bit/192kHz as well as Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio formats, you had to pay $19.99 a month for Tidal HiFi Plus. 

But once Tidal combines its HiFi and HiFi Plus plans, individual Tidal members will get high-resolution (or “HiRes FLAC,” as a Tidal support page says) tracks and spatial audio streaming for just $10.99 a month.

Meanwhile, the new Tidal plan will cost $16.99 a month for families (including up to 5 family members) and $4.99 a month for students—and again, those prices are unchanged compared to the former Tidal HiFi plan. 

In announcing its new subscription plan, Tidal made no mention of MQA, the proprietary codec that used to be Tidal’s go-to format for high-resolution music.

Tidal announced last year that the lossless, open-source FLAC codec would become the service’s “preferred format for high resolution audio,” although MQA tracks would continue to be available.

The Tidal announcement also lacked mention of Sony 360 Reality Audio as a spatial audio format, although Dolby Atmos was mentioned.

We’ve reached out to Tidal for more details.

Tidal was a pioneer when it came to offering lossless and high-resolution audio tracks, and back in the day, audiophiles were willing to pay Tidal’s premium prices because the other major streaming services (including Apple Music, Amazon, and Spotify) only offered lossy audio. 

But Apple changed the game in 2021 when it began offering high-resolution and spatial audio music tracks with its regular plans at no additional cost. Amazon immediately followed suit. (Spotify announced back in 2021 that it would begin streaming lossless tracks but has yet to follow up on the promise.) 

A few months after Apple’s move, Tidal responded by adding a cheaper “HiFi” lossless audio plan for the same price as Apple and Amazon, but as I explained above, Tidal HiFi only offered CD-quality tracks. For the same high-resolution and spatial audio tracks available on Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited, you had to pony up for the $19.99-a-month Hi-Fi Plus plan. 

Last summer, Tidal hiked the prices of its Tidal HiFi plan to $10.99 a month, matching the 2023 price hikes of Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Updated shortly after publication to note that neither MQA nor Sony 360 Reality Audio were mentioned in Tidal’s announcement.