SoundCloud came up with a two-tiered subscription service to compete with rivals Spotify and Apple Music, less than a year ago. But, the widely popular music streaming platform doesn’t seem to be happy with the offerings and is, thus, altering the subscription plans. Soundcloud has now introduced a mid-tier offering for $4.99/month providing ad-free music experience.
Apart from dismissing ads while streaming, this plan also offers offline support in addition to the standard SoundCloud experience. It has been named SoundCloud Go. While the former $10/month SoundCloud Go subscription has been rechristened SoundCloud Go+. The new service is aimed at bringing in more revenues for the company, which is currently involved in talks of raising fresh funds to keep its ship afloat in the music streaming ecosystem.
On addition of the mid-tier subscription services, SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung said,
By expanding our offering, we not only enhance the experience for listeners on the platform, but also unlock new revenue opportunities to further expand our creator-payout program.
Since the launch of its revenue operations, the company has grappled while converting 175 Mn active users into paying subscribers. The fresh mid-tier plan might pull in new users which were mulling over the other plans till now. The platform is known for the user- and artist-uploaded content. Soundcloud is still to bring in that added charm to the said content with some innovative new scheme.
Recently, the Berlin-based company had to part ways with two of its top-level executives — COO Marc Strigel and the finance director Markus Harder, a couple weeks ago. While Harder was responsible for leading the finance (accounting, FP&A, royalties) and IT team, Strigel oversaw cross-functional teams centred around revenue, financial health, and organisational health.
The variation of subscription services comes at a time when the company is close to running out of capital and is seeking money in desperation. The mid-tier service goes live later this morning at 8 AM ET (6:30 PM IST).
