New iTunes pricing to finally go into effect April 7th? (updated)

by Justin Horn on Apr 6th, 2009 @ 4:45 pm

UPDATE 2 MacRumors has found that…

Amazon, which had previously offered a standard $0.99 price point, is now offering approximately eight of its top 100 bestselling tracks at $1.29, with a handful of others priced at $0.79 and the vast majority still priced at $0.99. Wal-Mart, which had previously offered individual tracks for $0.94 and late last year began offering its top hits at $0.74, has also adopted a three-tiered model with $1.24, $0.94 and $0.64 price points. Approximately 15 of its Top 100 Singles are currently priced at $1.24.

UPDATE New pricing live. I still haven’t been able to find a $0.69 song, but plenty of $1.29 mixed in now. What’s interesting is some albums have mixed pricing with soem track 69 cents and some at a buck 29, but the album is still $9.99.

The old news is that Apple finally caved into record companies demands for flexible pricing, but we were never told exactly when this would go into effect. The new pricing structure will sell songs at 3 different levels; $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 vs keeping all the tunes at 99 cents. In return Apple got the record companies to allow them to sell tracks without any DRM and higher bitrates…which Apple calls iTunes Plus. The latest and greatest songs will start selling for $1.29. This is only 30 cents more, but 30% is still a pretty large jump.

The “new” news coming from LA Times is that this new pricing structure will finally be going into affect tomorrow, April 7th. Although probably unrelated, this may explain the upgrade to iTunes 8.1.1 today.

So the question now is how the price change will affect sales. Will the cheaper catalog tracks start selling better at 69 cents and offset any decrease in the higher priced new tracks? Only time will tell, but my guess is that sales won’t be affected much and in the long run will continue to increase as more and more people overcome the need for physical media. Plus, with all songs going to a higher bitrate and no DRM, this brings the product almost in line with buying the CD.

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View 2 Comments
Apples & Oranges, iPod, iTunes, Speculation

1.
1. Jordan

   April 7th, 2009 3:56 pm

   

   What about the U.K.?

2.
2. Chiyin

   April 8th, 2009 9:13 am

   

   @Jordan

   I believe the pricing in the U.K. is now 59p, 79p and 99p… and it seems like across the pond the prices for some new releases have not been bumped up to the higher price as here in the US… we’ll keep an eye on this and report back….

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