Zune Pass UK pricing revealed

September 3, 2010 | By Surur

Zune Pass UK fees revealed

A handy tipster sent us a screen shot from the Zune desktop software which conveniently reveals the UK pricing for the service, which is expected to launch concurrently with the phones in mid-October.

The service will cost £8.99 for one month, or £26.97 for 3 (which means no discount for a longer subscription), and like the US includes 10 free tracks, which at the current price for a CD makes the service more or less free if you buy music regularly.

I have had reservations about signing up to another subscription before, but at these pricing levels its pretty hard to resist.

Do our readers agree? Let us know below.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged uk, windows phone 7, zune, zune pass

l3v5y

As a fan of the wonderful Spotify, I'm not sure I really want to pay for music!
http://twitter.com/Gilly2468 @Gilly2468

This is very exciting and I can't wait for Zune to come to the UK properly. I have just tried to access this info myself but it doesn't seem possible.

Do you guys know what version of the Zune software the tipster was running to access this?
Travis

Hopefully the Australian pricing is revealed very soon I so wish to subscribe!

chris

if u do the math its roughly 50 AUD for 3 months… bit on the expensive side…but then again it is the all you can eat experience

http://twitter.com/sab0tage @sab0tage

I'm 30 and I can never tell if "plus tax" means it's included in the price or you need to add it on. "inc VAT" or "ex VAT" make more sense.
http://www.martinschmidler.com martinschmidler

9 pounds are around 10€, plus the taxes here in Austria.. results in ~ 12-15€ which is okay for me. I'm not quite sure though, will the Zune service be available in all launch countries (Austria is one) ??
http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

Too much imo, that over £10 after tax, I would be happy to pay about £5-6 after tax, maybe stretch to 8…
Jake

Why plus tax? Just make it simple and tell us what the price is. It's quite dishonest to exclude the tax from the price and I can't see any reason to do it. I don't know whether this is standard in America but it's certainly not in the UK.

l3v5y

In the US it's done because the taxes vary massively from state to state, so they state a base price and the tax gets added later.

I think the "plus tax" part may be a left over from Zune being US only.

Jake

Well hopefully they'll fix that before launch because it just seems misleading. The only other company I can think of that behaves like that is Ryanair and their reputation is mud because of it.

Microsoft really need to do everything necessary to avoid messing up this launch.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129472245 Max Magana

It's probably because they legally need to exclude the tax from the price, because as tax fluctuates, they don't want to have to keep adjusting their pricing plans.

Jake

I doubt it. VAT will rise by 2.5% in January but it's not likely to change again in the foreseeable future.

majg

Those are reasonable prices. Not bad.
http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

I dont understand why its reasonable… grooveshark and spotify have free options for streaming… why would i pay a 10er a month for basically the same thing? yes you get 10 songs to download a month, but alot of the albums I buy online are around £5 and have almost 20 tracks on.

http://twitter.com/Gilly2468 @Gilly2468

You don't get ads with the Zune Pass and it allows any music to be played on TVs too through the Xbox 360. I have found Spotify to often not have the music I have been looking for, or they do list it but they don't have the rights to stream the song in the UK, hopefully Zune will be better.
Surur

Spotify charges for mobile use. I am not sure about grooveshark.
Northerngeek

AND to add to Gilly2468's point you can use Zune's music when you're offline and away from signal, which is a nice feature to have. I love my ZuneHD, Spotify never seemed comparable to me when I've used it.
l3v5y

Zune is basically Spotify Premium + you keep ten tracks a month permanently.

For the life of the subscription, you can store as many songs offline as you like, they just go when your subscription ends.

http://www.facebook.com/Bugblatter Bug Blatter

Napster is £5 per month, you get 5 free songs per month and they're mp3s so you can keep them forever.

I've tried Spotify Premium as well. I found the interface better, and the data's better (fewer duplicates cluttering things up). However the fact it doesn't work with my Squeezebox Boom was a deal-breaker (there is a way to do it but it means leaving the PC on, whereas Napster is accessible directly over the net).

I'll never buy music with any form of DRM. MS has already shafted people by shutting down their 'Plays for Sure' servers, why would anyone trust them again? Therefore the 10 free songs per month are irrelevant to me.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129472245 Max Magana

The ten a month from Zune, you can also keep forever.
Also, if you pay for a Napster subscription, they have DRM as well. If you don't connect to the Napster servers, then your music doesn't play.
Any subscription service uses DRM. Stop kidding yourself.

http://www.facebook.com/Bugblatter Bug Blatter

You mean you can keep them forever as long as you keep subscribing and MS doesn't decide to pull the plug like they did with 'Plays for Sure'? Or did you mean you can keep them but not play them?

The 5 free songs I download from from Napster each month are mp3s and therefore have no DRM and Napster has no way to revoke them. I don't have to connect to the Napster server to play my mp3s, only to stream music from Napster.
http://wmpoweruser.com wmpoweruser

The "keep forever" songs in Zune Pass are also standard mp3's http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/12-Month-Zun…
http://www.facebook.com/Bugblatter Bug Blatter

Ahh fair enough; I misread l3v5y's post.
Jake

Here's a response to your FUD from a blog post from Microsoft back in 2008:

5) Are the free tracks in WMA or in MP3 format?

That depends on the song. About 90% of Marketplace tracks are available in DRM-free MP3 format. So chances are you’ll be getting a drm-free mp3.
http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/11/20/the-new…
Joe

That's 2 years old. It's nearly 100% MP3 now.

Surur

I believe the songs you can keep are pure mp3′s, now wma’s.

djguapo

Wonder what happened to the rumored lower-end Zune Pass…
vodorian

Plus tax means that price includes tax. If it was (ex VAT) then you'd have to add 17.5%
Still pretty expensive.

Northerngeek

1. Plus tax doesn't mean that it is inclusive of tax. If I say "£5 plus £2 tax" then it would be the same as saying "5 plus 2"… both ways I get seven. Although you are right with the "ex VAT" claim.

2. It's going to be 20% soon enough! (Not that our country doesn't need to finally pay for stuff, but VAT seems like an odd place to start).

l3v5y

VAT is a good way in my opinion. To the end consumer, an extra 2.5% is minimal, but add lots of it together and it's a sizeable increase on current government funds.

Northerngeek

Same here, sadly I closed my US bank account last week and refuse to pay the extortionate prices you see on eBay for imported prepaid cards.

BUT wait a minute… £8.99 PLUS TAX? As of Janurary that's going to be £10.78, which would put it just above my comfort zone of £9.99/mo.
Racedriver

I bought MS points from the zune software recently (in the UK) as an experiment it said $3.40 plus taxes, I was charged £3.40 inc VAT.
Will

"Plus tax" is a mistake, or rather a stray Americanism. In the States it would indicate that the price does not include sales tax, which varies from place to place around the country. In Europe, of course, prices always include VAT. Expect those two words to be removed before the service is properly launched.
Danny

Spotify only has free streaming on the desktop, to get 'spotify on your mobile' you need the £9.99 version.

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