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What is Amazon Music
Amazon Music is a music streaming platform that boasts a library of 100 million songs, plus thousands of online stations and podcasts. Available on iOS, Android and Windows, Amazon Music comes in three subscription levels:
Amazon Music Free: a free service that gives limited access to songs, podcasts and playlists, accompanied by advertisements.
Amazon Music Prime: provides access to over 100 million songs, podcasts and online stations with no advertisements, plus off-line streaming of certain playlists.
Amazon Music Unlimited: a premium service that includes benefits such as off-line streaming of songs and albums, plus very high-quality sound and spatial audio options.
How much data does Amazon Music use?
Amazon Music Free and Amazon Music Prime both offer standard definition sound that streams music at up to 320 kilobits per second (kbps). This is the same rate offered by Spotify in its very high quality setting, and equates to about 144 megabytes (MB) of data per hour.
However, for those worried about their phone data, Amazon does offer a “Data Saver” setting that delivers music at around 48kbps, which works out to around 22MB per hour.
For audiophiles, the sound settings available to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers deliver fantastic levels of audio quality. However, they require a lot of data:
- High Definition (CD-quality): 800kbps | 360MB per hour
- Ultra High Definition: Between 1600-5000kbps | 720MB-2.25GB per hour
How can I reduce my Amazon Music mobile data usage?
To manage your mobile data usage, adjust the audio quality in the settings menu of the Amazon Music app. The Standard and Data Saver options use less data than Best Available, although they will result in lower sound quality.
To further reduce mobile data consumption, select Wi-Fi only in Streaming Network Preferences on the Amazon Music phone app. This will prevent you from using any mobile data. However, it will limit your listening to only downloaded music while away from a Wi-Fi connection.
Can you use Amazon Music offline?
As we mention above, only Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can download albums and songs for use offline.
Offline playback for Amazon Music Prime subscribers is limited to All-Access playlists. These are 15 playlists that can be compiled manually, or put together automatically by Amazon Music from your music choices.
Do you get Amazon Music for free with Amazon Prime?
Amazon Music Prime is one of the benefits of a Prime membership, which currently costs $10.99 per month.
A standalone Music Unlimited subscription costs $19.64 per month. Prime members get a discount: $17.85 per month, or $99 per year.
Music Unlimited family plans are also available, for $27.08 per month, allowing up to six people to listen on different devices at the same time. Prime members receive a discount and can get an annual subscription for $159.
Student plans and single-device deals are also available.
What’s the deal with Amazon Music and data usage?
In comparison to other music streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music, Amazon Music can use more data, because it offers higher levels of audio quality as standard.
However, by tweaking your audio settings, using Wi-Fi and downloading music for offline use, or choosing an unlimited data phone plan, it is still possible to enjoy Amazon Music without burning through all your mobile data.
About the author of this page
Bruce Pitchers is the Content Manager at Canstar New Zealand. An experienced finance reporter, Bruce has three decades’ experience as a journalist and has worked for major media companies in Australia, the UK and New Zealand, including ACP, Are Media, Bauer Media Group, Fairfax, Pacific Magazines, News Corp and TVNZ.
Bruce started his career as an entertainment journalist before turning his pen to sport and fitness content, working for some of Australia’s leading sports magazines. Bruce then moved his focus to the world of finance and worked as a freelance writer and editor for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority and major banks and investment companies on both sides of the Tasman.
In his role at Canstar, he has been a regular commentator in the NZ media, including on the Driven, Stuff and One Roof websites, the NZ Herald, Radio NZ, and Newstalk ZB.
Away from his desk at Canstar, Bruce spends many hours creating and editing puzzles for magazine and newspaper titles in the USA and Australasia, including Woman’s Day and New Idea. To that end, he is the co-author of the murder-mystery puzzle book 5 Minute Murder.
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