YouTube Premium is a much-welcomed alternative to being bombarded with advertisements—often the same advertisements over and over—when trying to watch your favourite YouTube channels. The premise of YouTube Premium is simple; pay a monthly subscription fee and be freed from the endless shackles of ad interruptions (as well as other perks, but we’ll get to that). But can you share your YouTube Premium subscription?
The quick answer is yes, you can share your YouTube Premium subscription… if you have the right kind of subscription!
YouTube offers a few options for YouTube Premium plans, with “Individual” being the most common—and, for a while, the only—plan used. There is also a “Student” plan, which is essentially the individual plan offered at a discount. Neither of these plans permits “sharing” in any meaningful way, however. They are individual plans that are tied to a single account, and you’ll start getting popup messages if you attempt to view YouTube on more than one device simultaneously using your Premium account.
Sharing Your YouTube Premium Account Unofficially
That last part—using your Premium account—is relevant here. Think about it; sharing YouTube Premium means giving the people you are sharing it with access to your account since Premium is tied to it. Unlike Netflix or Amazon Prime, there are no user profiles, so not only will the people you are sharing with have access to your viewing history and account settings, but the videos they view will also affect your recommendations.
Not everyone is overly guarded about things like their viewing history, but if you are one of the people who like to keep their viewing habits to themselves, you might want to really think about what sharing your account means before diving in.
Another thing to consider is that using your YouTube Premium account in this manner is not what YouTube intended, and YouTube could well decide to take action, such as suspending your account.
Now, realistically speaking, this doesn’t happen often—if at all. Ultimately, YouTube Premium users are a revenue source, and YouTube is more likely to look for ways to lock down the service to prevent these kinds of things from happening than ban paying users. That being said, it will always be a possibility, and you take a risk by assuming YouTube won’t take that step.
Sharing Your YouTube Premium Subscription Properly
So, with all that in mind, how can you share your YouTube Premium subscription in a way that is both easy and approved by YouTube itself? Two words; family plan.
For a few extra pounds a month, you can make your YouTube Premium subscription a family subscription, allowing you to add up to five other users who can benefit from the perks of YouTube Premium, all above board.
This offer isn’t without restrictions, however. Each user must be over the age of 13, and they must be “in your household”, so you’re still going to be flouting YouTube’s rules if you add your friend who lives a few miles away to your family subscription.
The plan works by adding your family member’s YouTube accounts to the plan, so you don’t need to worry about your video recommendations getting muddled up by what the people you are sharing your account with are watching. You can also rest easy knowing they won’t be able to snoop through your viewing history!
The price for this plan works is, at the time of writing, £17.99 per month, a scant £6 more than an individual plan. Of course, when you compare that to the £59.95 it would cost to get five individual plans, it’s a very appealing deal!
Maybe you are worried that using the premium account wll hurt your favourite youtubers? I covered that in a recent blog.
What Other Perks Do You Get With YouTube Premium?
Being able to browse YouTube without fear of your videos being interrupted by repetitive ads is a strong selling point, but it’s not the only one on offer. For your money, you will also get the ability to download videos for watching offline—a useful feature for those times you know you are going to be without a decent (or any) Internet connection for a while.
You also get the ability to play videos in the background on your mobile devices. This is a weird one, as it will either sound completely pointless or an amazing feature to have depending on the person. Obviously, if you are only ever watching YouTube, being able to play videos while not watching them is going to seem like an odd thing to do. However, for those of us that regularly use YouTube for things like podcasts and other content that is primarily audio-based, this feature allows us to set it going and do other things on our device, or even lock the device while getting on with some housework. Trust us, once you’ve gone background play, you never go back!
I love background play so much I learnt how to hack it to play youtube videos in the background for FREE on Android and iOS devices.
And, finally, on the subject of playing YouTube in the background, your Premium subscription will also give you access to YouTube Music Premium. If you’re not familiar with YouTube Music Premium (as many people aren’t), it is essentially YouTube’s alternative to music streaming services like Spotify. Music can also be downloaded to listen to when out of range of a data connection, as well as played in the background for those times when you just want to listen to some tunes while doing other things.
Final Thoughts
The user profiles that services like Netflix offer are undoubtedly useful, but we shouldn’t expect to see anything like that appear on YouTube Premium. YouTube like to keep their users distinct and using their own accounts so that they can do all of the tracking that makes their recommendation algorithm so effective. Not to mention serve you the most relevant ads possible should you ever leave Premium.
Whether YouTube Premium is good value for money is going to be an entirely subjective matter. Some users are perfectly happy to put up with the ads served on YouTube, and for them, £11.99 or £17.99 a month may seem a little steep. For everyone else, Premium can be an invaluable service.
Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!
2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos
I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.
When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.
Big mistake!
I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.
That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.
Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.
3. Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.
A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.
4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare
I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.
Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.
I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.
5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.
