Tidal tightens its plans to compete with fellow music publishers. The platform removes the HiFi Plus and HiFI tiers to create a custom plan called Tidal, respectively. The new option will offer Plus users $20 a month, but everything they pay $11 for — the same price as Spotify and Apple Music’s single-person plans. It seems that Tidal, when its competitors offer similar bonuses for less (the company especially couldn’t justify asking to pay an extra $9) fired 10 percent of its employees in December).
The new solo level includes Dolby Atmos, HiRes FLAC and lossless audio for over 100 million songs. Apple Music also offers lossless audio, but it’s ahead of Tidal Spotify, which still needs to be rolled out. There is a small catch for current HiFi Plus subscribers: Tidal’s DJ integration feature is becoming a DJ Extension — which will cost subscribers another $10. Anyone using the DJ integration in the last 90 days will be automatically upgraded to their new plan when the tier overhaul goes into effect on April 10. Note that Tidal’s family plan will also become just one option, the $17 offer. The monthly price of HiFi Plus is $30.
While the changes are generally a good deal for Tidal subscribers, music streaming gets rid of many options including the free tier. As of March 4, Tidal has also canceled its discount for new subscribers to military personnel and first responders. Existing free-tier subscribers will have to pay full price starting April 10, while military personnel and first responders who already use Tidal will have to make the switch starting June 10. Students using Tidal will keep their $5 monthly rate.
