YouTube Premium Lite is Back; A Different Version Now in Test Phase and Available to Users in Few Countries

Following the recent price hike of the YouTube Premium subscription plan, Google is revealed to be testing a cheaper alternative. This is regarding YouTube’s Premium Lite subscription that was discontinued back in 2023, however, the newer version has a catch.

Here’s more about it.

Is YouTube’s Premium Lite Really Back?

For those of you who don’t know, similar to the YouTube Premium subscription, the YouTube Premium Lite subscription also offered users the benefit of an add-free experience in the past, and was available at a cheaper price. But do note that other benefits like YouTube Music, background play, and download options were unavailable to YouTube Premium Lite subscribers and was only available on the YouTube Premium plan.

As mentioned, the Premium Lite plan was discontinued last year in 2023 and as we are getting to the end of 2024, Google seems to have plans to bring the cheaper plan back. This is because a different version of YouTube Premium Lite is in test and users in a few countries, namely Germany, Australia, and Thailand, may see the availability of YouTube’s Premium Lite plan on their YouTube account. To note, in Australia, when compared to the YouTube Premium plan of AUD 22.99 per month, the Premium Lite plan can be availed by paying almost half the price – AUD 11.99 per month.

There is one more thing that users must keep in mind. As opposed to the previous version of YouTube Premium Lite that offered ‘no-adds’ benefit, the newer version will have a ‘limited-ads’ feature. Regarding the expansion of YouTube Premium Lite to more countries, Google still hasn’t yet made any announcements and we’ll probably have to wait for a while.