Pandora Family Plan Pricing & Details: Is It Worth It For You?

Not to be confused with the figure from Greek mythology (or the planet in James Cameron’s Avatar), Pandora is a music streaming service that emphasizes shuffled recommendations based on users’ tastes. Some call it a personalized internet radio service, and it’s an accurate description — especially considering all the ads. In 2017, Pandora launched a Premium plan that brought several new features. In 2018, they launched the Pandora Family Plan. What are the details? How about pricing? And is it worth subscribing to? Let’s break down the ins and outs of the Pandora Family Plan below.

Pandora Specs

The History of Pandora

Pandora is an online music streaming platform that offers personalized recommendations based on user preferences. The streamer was first founded by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft, and Tim Westergren in January of 2000. The three wanted to create a music discovery service — not necessarily a music streaming service, however — that would introduce listeners to a variety of new artists and songs. They based their service on the Music Genome Project: a comprehensive analysis of songs according to more than 450 unique attributes such as rhythm, lyrics, harmonies, and melodies.

This intricate analysis and categorization was then used to help Pandora create personalized radio experiences for individual users based solely on their music preferences. They first launched a prototype under the name “Savage Beast Music Player” in August of 2000. However, it was not very successful at all (due in part to its focus on businesses instead of consumers). Glaser, Kraft, and Westergren had exhausted two million in funding after just one year, and by 2004, the company knew they’d need to rework Savage Beast. Thus, in 2005, Pandora was truly born.

Now geared toward the consumer market, Pandora launched as an internet radio service in the fall of 2005. It once again relied on the Music Genome Project for its personalizations, using the sophisticated algorithm to recommend similar songs to users based on their particular likes and dislikes. This time, Glaser, Kraft, and Westergren had a real hit on their hands. By the end of the year, the newly repurposed streamer had accrued more than two million users. Today, Pandora stands as one of the most popular music streaming platforms in the world with more than 60 million active users.

Benefits Of Pandora Subscriptions

Let’s break down the benefits of each one of Pandora’s subscription plans: Pandora Plus, Pandora Premium, and Pandora Family Plan. Each comes with its own unique price, which varies depending on if subscribers want to pay monthly or annually. Additionally, each comes with its own unique set of benefits. Allow us to elaborate on the nuances of each of these Pandora subscriptions, including factors such as unique benefits and individual pricing per subscription tier. Then, we’ll discuss these subscriptions in depth.

Pandora Plus

Pandora Premium

Pandora Family Plan

How Pandora Subscriptions (Including Pandora Family Plan) Came To Be

Not unlike Spotify, Pandora offers both free and paid subscription options. These paid options provide listeners with numerous additional features such as ad-free listening, unlimited skips, and greater freedom of choice in the music played. Even with strong competition from rivals such as Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora continues to thrive as a popular choice for music lovers the world over. Its three subscription models — Pandora Plus, Pandora Premium, and Pandora Family Plan — are partially to thank for this. Plus was introduced in 2016, with Premium in 2017 and the Pandora Family Plan in 2018.

Pandora Plus is the most basic and affordable subscription option at $4.99 a month. It allows Pandora users to listen to ad-free music and enjoy unlimited skips — effectively circumventing two integral components of Pandora’s free plan, which comes riddled with ads and a limited number of skips. Pandora Plus also gives users the ability to replay particular songs they really love, as well as create personalized playlists and listen to music offline. Pandora Premium offers everything included in Plus, but adds unrestricted song playback and unlimited skip-free playlists for $9.99 monthly.

The Pandora Family Plan is the priciest tier, but it’s also the most feature-heavy. It allows up to six users to create accounts under one master account holder. Each user is given their own personalized account. Beyond this, each personalized account comes with ad-free listening, an unlimited number of skips, and the ability to listen to music offline. This subscription costs $14.99 per month, which breaks down to less than $2.50 per account with six accounts. With the annual discount, that comes out to be less than $2.30 per account per month.

Pros And Cons Of Pandora Family Plan

Is The Pandora Family Plan Worth It?

There’s no doubt the Pandora Family Plan is a great deal. At $14.99 a month for up to six users — each getting to enjoy their own personalized account with ad-free streams and an unlimited number of skips. and the ability to listen to music offline — it’s easy to see the appeal here. (Not to mention the need for its existence alongside Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium.) But, the question remains: Is the Pandora Family Plan worth it for you personally? The answer depends on what exactly your family situation looks like.

How many people are in your household? How often do they listen to music? Would they use all of the features associated with the Pandora Family Plan? Or would some of these features go to waste? Ask yourself these questions to determine whether the Pandora Family Plan is right for you. For example: If there are only three of you, and you don’t need all the added benefits of Premium, maybe you’re better off with three Plus plans instead. Ultimately, the Pandora Family Plan could — and, in all likelihood, probably would — be a great investment for you and your family.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©XanderSt/Shutterstock.com.