UPDATE (4/10/26): Welp. YouTube just revealed that it’s raising the price of Premium Lite to $8.99 (up $1). Still a good deal but really hurts my whole argument here, huh? Anyway, here’s my original post:
Just over one year ago, YouTube brought a new tier of its Premium offering to the U.S.: Premium Lite. Priced at $7.99 versus the $13.99 the main Premium option fetches, this new tier offered an ad-free watching experience on most videos, while foregoing a few other perks of the flagship product. Well, now, YouTube is making some positive tweaks that may make Premium Lite even more attractive.
YouTube Premium Lite users have gained a couple of new features, including background play and the ability to download videos for offline play. However, once again, these features only apply to most videos.
So what are the exceptions? Well, the key difference between YouTube Premium and YouTube Premium Lite is that the latter doesn’t include an ad-free experience on the YouTube Music app. That restriction also extends to what YouTube deems “music content”. Pro tip: You’ll see a music note icon next to the runtime on the thumbnail of these videos, which then means that Lite users will probably see ads on those videos. Well, those same rules now also apply to these new perks.
To test this, I tried downloading a “regular” video as well as one related to music. Sure enough, while the regular one worked just fine, my attempt to download the other resulted in me getting an ad for regular YouTube Premium.
I’ll be honest: offline downloads is a feature I’ve never considered using in the past. Nevertheless, it’s a nice trick to have, especially if it’s not going to cost me anything extra (at least not yet). Plus, now that I have it, I can actually see myself downloading a few videos before a flight or other Internet-less activity. For example, video podcasts could be a great use of this feature, IMHO.
By the way, if you’re an American Express Platinum cardmember, you can actually get YouTube Premium Lite for free via your Digital Entertainment Credit. While that monthly credit is $25 and, thus, could cover a regular Premium subscription instead, I prefer to use $20 of my credit on an ad-free Disney+ and Hulu bundle and apply the rest toward Premium Lite. That means I’m effectively paying less than $3 out of pocket each month for (nearly) ad-free YouTube.
Personally, I’ve long grappled with the idea of paying for YouTube Premium since the platform is free. Yet, I came to realize that I watch a lot more YouTube than I do other streaming services that I do pay for. That’s why I jumped at the chance to get YouTube Premium Lite, which I saw as a great middle ground. It’s also why I’m excited that YouTube is making this tier even better.
With that, if you’re someone who watches YouTube often — especially long videos with lots of midroll ads — I think that this upgraded YouTube Premium Lite tier is now a no-brainer.