Spotify Premium 2.0

Why Student Plan, why now

We observed measurable friction in the Student Plan conversion journey: unclear entry points, lack of incentives, and verification gaps that slowed decisions. Early research into the pain points students were facing and user comments pointed to one primary, addressable blocker to upgrading: finding enough value in the Student Premium plan to justify committing to an upgrade. Our goal: shorten the path from curiosity to trial by showing students the value in the Premium plan, compelling them to upgrade.

Scoping the work: why aren't students already on Student Premium?

From our survey results, over 46% of students who are on Free stayed on the plan because they felt Premium wasn't worth the cost given the current benefits. We used 80+ data points to segment our target audience into two decision-making personas:

• -- Unsatisfied satisfied (doesn't see enough incentives to upgrade from Free)
• -- Unaware (don't know about the Student Plan or extent of benefits)

From here, we explored why students use Spotify:

• -- 50% cited social reasons (listening with or connecting through friends).
• -- 24% converted because of a free trial — the single biggest motivator behind ad-free listening.

This pointed us toward our design hypothesis: If we leverage social listening and plan discovery through free trials, Spotify will become more integral to the student experience, creating stronger justification and willingness to convert.

Prototyping & testing

Through concept testing, lofi wireframes, and feature ranking with 18 test users, we narrowed down to three key feature additions:

• 1. Music Match: match with peers based on shared music taste & behavior.
• 2. Upcoming Events: notifications and recommendations for campus and college town-specific concerts and events.
• 3. Friends Hub: a centralized space for collaborative playlists, jams, etc.

After redesigning the Student Plan flow with these features and testing it out as part of an opt-in, free-trial experience with test users, students were 85% more likely to start a free trial of Student Premium compared with the original plan.