Meet Maggie, PCMag'sApple Music and Spotify receive much attention, but the streaming music category is much larger than those industry juggernauts. Amazon Music Unlimited offers an impressive library of music, a deep podcast well, hi-res audio, and clever discovery and AI innovations, making it an Editors' Choice winner alongside the aforementioned services.
Since I last reviewed it, Amazon Music Unlimited has raised its price, shortened its free trial period, improved its Maestro AI playlist generator, and now bundles one free Audible audiobook per month with your subscription. Overall, Amazon Music Unlimited remains a fantastic streaming option among the many streaming music services I've tested and retested over the years, and it's especially appealing if you're already an Amazon subscriber or Echo device user.
Curious about the differences between Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Music Prime? I'll break it down. Amazon Music Unlimited is a standalone streaming music service. Amazon Music Prime is bundled into your Prime subscription. It offers the same robust musical catalog as Amazon Music Unlimited, but here's the rub: Your musical selection is shuffled, and you're allowed a single, 50-track on-demand playlist. Additionally, it lacks Amazon Music Unlimited's HD, Ultra HD, or spatial audio offerings.
Signing up for Amazon Music Unlimited updates the service and replaces Amazon Music Prime as your Amazon jukebox, so you don't need to worry about launching the wrong streaming service.
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Unlike Apple Music and Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited has a free tier: Amazon Music Free. It lets you listen to select ad-supported playlists and thousands of stations (such as All Hits, Fuego Latino, and Holiday Favorites) via the web, Amazon Music mobile apps, Echo smart speakers, and Fire TV devices. Want to upgrade to enjoy more features? Navigating Amazon Music Unlimited's pricing structure requires a bit more wallet awareness than it did a couple of years ago due to aggressive price hikes across all tiers.
Amazon Music Unlimited now starts at $12.99 per month. Amazon Prime subscribers receive a meager discount that drops the fee to $11.99 per month, on top of their Prime subscription fee ($14.99 per month or $139 per year). The service's annual plan costs $129 per year for non-Prime subscribers or $119 per year for subscribers. For comparison, Apple Music and Spotify start at $11.99 and $12.99 per month, respectively.
In addition, Amazon has a $21.99-per-month Family Plan that covers up to six people (the Annual Family option has jumped to $219 per year). Furthermore, the service's former 90-day free trial has been permanently reduced to a standard 30-day window, reserving the longer trials strictly for temporary Amazon Prime Day promotional periods. SiriusXM still offers a 90-day trial for new subscribers.
Amazon device owners receive a discount, too—they pay just $6.99 per month, which is just $3 more than LiveOne's low-cost, ad-free Plus tier. However, you cannot listen to HD, Ultra HD, or spatial audio with this plan. If you want to stream to multiple smart speakers, you must upgrade to an Individual or Family plan. Amazon Music Unlimited's voice-controlled device plans come with another big limitation: You cannot stream music via apps or a web browser; you must use one of the aforementioned devices.
Students with a Prime Student account ($7.49 per month, $69 per year) receive a discount that drops the Amazon Music Unlimited fee to an incredibly low $0.99 per month. Non-Prime students pay $5.99 per month.
Amazon Music Unlimited offers more than 100 million songs and dozens of stations, including the expected Classical, Decades, Rock, and Hip-Hop stations. You can even find more obscure musical offerings within Amazon's catalog, such as video game soundtracks and fan covers. In a nice touch, any Amazon Music Prime playlists you've previously created carry over to Music Unlimited. You can, of course, create new ones, too.
Several elements of the Amazon Music Unlimited interface are designed to help you discover or buy music. You'll find several recommended albums and playlists based on your listening habits. Thankfully, these suggestions don't feel forced. In fact, I find them helpful.
The left navigation menu contains sections for purchased and imported music. The former has Amazon Music-purchased tracks that you can stream or download. The latter houses the files you uploaded to Amazon's servers via the now-defunct music-uploading feature in the Amazon Music desktop app. Spotify, I must note, lets you upload MP3s from your phone or PC. Like other streaming platforms, however, Amazon Music Unlimited does not allow you to record audio.
I was pleased to see "Little Red Corvette," "Purple Rain," "Raspberry Beret," and other Prince classics appear after keying the artist's name into Music Unlimited's large search box. They're the real tracks, not tribute works by bands no one cares about. Like YouTube Music, Amazon Music Unlimited has cool, karaoke-like scrolling text that moves in time with the performance.
Maestro is an AI playlist generator that's available to Amazon Music, Prime, and Unlimited subscribers (you access it via the mobile app's Playlist button). To use Maestro, you launch it and then enter a prompt. You can use text or emoji for playlist ideas.
I tested it with various silly text prompts and emoji and was given an eclectic selection of tracks. When using the hot and cold emoji, Maestro concocted a Thermal Thrills playlist, described as a "mix of hot and cold songs to give you chills." The music included "Fireman" by Lil Wayne, "Cold as Ice" by Foreigner, and "Hot N Cold" by Katy Perry. In a more practical experiment, I used the keywords "work" and "therapeutic" to find a suitable playlist. Maestro treated me to a wonderful mix of new-age and electronic tracks, including "Black Sands" by Bonobo, "Porcelain" by Moby, and "Near Light" by Olafur Arnalds.
Maestro produces the occasional dud suggestion, as one might expect from an AI generator, but it's surprisingly fun to use. Its presence has grown since I last reviewed Amazon Music Unlimited, with Maestro now curating a "Weekly Vibe" playlist every Monday featuring fresh tracks, genres, and themes based on my recent listening habits.
Using the Alexa voice assistant, I easily command an Echo smart speaker to play a specific song. In addition, I used my voice to search for songs by lyrics, create playlists, and find tracks that matched my mood. It's cool to command Alexa to play up-tempo happy music and have the Echo blast the Pop to Make You Feel Better playlist.
That said, Amazon Music Unlimited lacks live music offerings. Sure, there are curated stations, but nothing compares to the live performances offered by SiriusXM, for example.
All Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers enjoy songs in HD quality (up to 850Kbps, 16-bit at 44.1kHz) and more than 7 million songs in Ultra HD quality (up to an absurd 3,730Kbps, 24-bit at 192kHz). This measures up pretty well to Tidal, which features non-compressed, 1,411Kbps FLAC and a few Master tracks at 9,216Kbps.
For HD audio, you need a device and an internet connection that supports it. Amazon recommends a 1.5Mbps or higher connection, and headphones or speakers that support a dynamic range (20kHz+ for HD audio, 40kHz+ for Ultra HD audio). You'll also need more than a standard Amazon Echo; the company recommends the $219 Amazon Echo Studio or hardware from Bose, Denon, Onkyo, or Polk.
You can only listen to Amazon Music HD via the Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps; you cannot stream high-quality music via a web browser. On the upside, the apps have audio quality indicators that show when you're listening to an HD or Ultra HD track. You can read about the Ultra HD hardware requirements and general compatibility on Amazon's Music HD page.
The Amazon Music HD tracks sound quite good, though the improvements are mostly subtle. I found several Music HD playlists, including ones for David Bowie, Ariana Grande, Billie Holiday, and Queen, as well as many individual albums and songs. A decent amount of K-Pop is available on Amazon Music Unlimited; I jammed to an HD version of NCT Dream's "Hot Sauce" and an UltraHD version of CIX's "All For You."
I particularly enjoyed Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now," as John Deacon's bass lines sounded deeper in the hi-res audio format. Cymbal crashes seemed to linger a bit longer, too. When we compared the sound using a pair of low-end earbuds plugged into our test phone, I couldn't detect any difference in quality as the songs streamed over Wi-Fi.
As mentioned earlier, Amazon Music Unlimited offers little non-music content aside from a handful of comedy specials (in audio form). That said, Amazon Music Unlimited takes a page from Spotify's playbook by offering a robust podcast catalog.
Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers who love 20/20, Crime Junkie, or What Now? with Trevor Noah no longer need to venture elsewhere for those shows. Even better, Amazon Music Unlimited features original podcasts hosted by notable celebrities, including DJ Khaled, Becky G, Will Smith, and Dan Patrick. It's Amazon Music Unlimited's ongoing effort to stay on par with the competition, especially in the entertainment industry. Since I last reviewed Amazon Music Unlimited, the service no longer supports music videos. If you want that, check out YouTube Music, which lets you switch between the video and audio tracks with a single click.
On the upside, the Side by Side playlist features tracks with cool, behind-the-scenes commentary. For example, you can ask Alexa to "play Side-by-Side with OneRepublic," and Ryan Tedder comments on songs from the band's album. David Gilmour, Hozier, The Killers, Norah Jones, U2, and other artists also provide Side-by-Side content. It's reminiscent of LiveOne's Artist DNA stations, but without the deep historical context connecting past and present musicians.
Amazon Music Unlimited adds native access to its sister service, Audible. Individual and Family tier subscribers in the US, UK, and Canada now receive one free audiobook stream per month from a massive catalog of more than 1 million Audible titles. You can stream the audiobook inside the Amazon Music app, so you don't need to download the Audible app. However, unlike buying books with standard Audible credits, you do not own the book.
If you cancel your Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, you immediately lose access to your audiobook selection. At the end of the billing cycle, you can either keep listening to your current book or exchange it for a new one.
Although I wish Amazon were a bit more flexible with the number of books you can stream, this addition adds significant value to the service, challenging Spotify's 15-hour audiobook limit per month.
Amazon Music Unlimited has Android and iOS apps. I tested the Android version and discovered it closely duplicates the Music Unlimited desktop experience. The app contains copious playlists, useful recommendations, and a store for purchasing music. It contains lyrics, too.
Like Amazon-powered smart speakers, Amazon's Alexa tech on phones lets you search for songs by lyrics or play tracks and playlists. For example, when I asked Alexa for dinner music, it supplied a laid-back, easy-listening playlist.
Final Thoughts
Amazon Music Unlimited
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
Amazon Music Unlimited is a top choice for streaming music, thanks to its useful features and close integration with Alexa voice control, Echo devices, and Fire TV. Though it lacks live radio, it offers nearly everything you could want, including podcasts, a comprehensive catalog of hi-res audio, AI-powered playlists, and a free monthly Audible book. If you already use other Amazon products or services, chances are you can get a discount on Music Unlimited, making it even more appealing. All of this makes Amazon Music Unlimited one of my favorite streaming music services, and an Editors' Choice winner.
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About Our Expert
In 2014, I began my career at PCMag as a freelancer. That blossomed into a full-time position in 2021, and I now review email marketing apps, mobile operating systems, web hosting services, streaming music platforms, and video games as a senior writer. I'm a graduate of Hunter College, a hard-core gamer, and an Apple enthusiast.
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