YouTube Premium Lite: Is it worth the $7.99/month?

If you ask YouTube users the most annoying part of their viewing experience, the majority would probably say the adverts. Ads pop up at the start, during, and after videos on the Google-owned platform.

Still, those data servers have to be paid for somehow, and YouTube hosts an awful lot of video. An average of 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every single day, and someone has to foot the bill.

There is a simple way to remove the ads on YouTube, which is to sign up for a subscription. It’s something you might not have ever considered since everything on the site and in the apps can be loaded up for free. But in return you get back a significant chunk of time you would otherwise spend watching ads.

There are actually two subscription packages available for YouTube, and the most affordable one—YouTube Premium Lite—just got a couple of useful upgrades that make it even more appealing. Here’s what you can now get for your money.

YouTube Premium Lite: Pricing and features

You’ll probably want to know the price first and foremost. YouTube Premium Lite will set you back $7.99 a month. That’s significantly more than nothing at all of course, and you may have been using YouTube free of charge for years. But it’s not a huge amount compared to other streaming services like HBO Max or Netflix.

The minute you’ve paid up, most of the ads will be gone from YouTube, and you might be surprised at what a difference it makes. You will still see advertising in some places however, including on music videos, on YouTube Shorts, and while you’re browsing the platform or searching for videos.

In February 2026, YouTube Premium Lite added two more features, still for the same $7.99-per-month fee. The first is background play on mobile: It means you can set a video playing in the YouTube app on Android or iOS, then switch to another app, and keep the audio from the video going in the background.

The second new feature is downloads, for watching videos offline on mobile and on the web. You can download whichever videos you like, but bear in mind that this isn’t the same as getting a video file you can then copy anywhere: Offline playback has to happen through the YouTube app or website.

However, the same caveats apply here as to watching without adverts. Background playback and offline downloads don’t apply to music videos and to YouTube Shorts content, which may change the value proposition for you.

Full YouTube Premium: What’s the difference?

At this point you may be wondering why you’d pay $13.99 a month for full-fat YouTube Premium when you can get the Lite edition for a mere $7.99 a month—a saving of $72 over the year. Well, there are some extras you get as part of a more expensive YouTube Premium subscription that you may want.

To begin with, adverts are removed everywhere—you won’t see them on YouTube Shorts or music videos. If you spend a lot of time on these types of videos, then again the time savings can really add up. The same restrictions on downloads and background playback go away too, so these benefits apply to every video on YouTube.

YouTube Premium also comes with YouTube Music Premium included, with all the benefits that entails (such as full control over offline downloads for your tracks, and no ads). If you can use YouTube Music Premium and cancel your Spotify or Apple Music subscription, then the difference between YouTube Premium and the Lite plan pays for itself really.

On top of that there are a bunch of little perks and tricks that remain exclusive to full YouTube Premium. They include the jump ahead feature, for example, that lets you quickly jump to the most-watched part of a video (which is usually the most interesting part of it). YouTube Premium also syncs your watching across multiple devices, so you can start a video on your phone and finish it on your TV, for example.

Full Premium members can access higher quality video and audio, take more control over playback speeds, and access more desktop features on mobile—including faster playback speeds and the ability to queue up videos on a phone or tablet. It’s the complete package for the YouTube enthusiast.

So… is it worth it?

There are really two key questions when it comes to whether or not these plans are worth it: How much money you’ve got spare each month, and how much time you spend watching videos on YouTube. If you can afford a subscription and use YouTube a lot, you could save hours every week not having to watch advertising.

On the other hand, if you only dip in and out of YouTube, and don’t have much use for features like offline downloads and YouTube Music Premium, then paying out for yet another digital subscription probably seems less appealing. YouTube Premium Lite as it stands today is a nice middle ground between getting full Premium and not paying.

The best course of action is probably to sign up for a month’s free trial of either YouTube Premium or YouTube Premium Lite, and see how you find it. By the time you reach the end of the month, you should be able to make an informed decision about whether one of these subscription packages is worth paying for.

 

2025 PopSci Best of What’s New

The 50 most important innovations of the year