Finally. Spotify's Lossless streaming has finally seen the light of day, four years late and a whopping eight years since it was first rumoured. And about time, too.
Rival streaming services have offered higher-quality listening for years now, and at no extra charge. So we're glad Spotify has finally got its act together and launched Lossless.
It was first announced back in February 2021, though then it went by the name Spotify HiFi. Spotify claimed it would launch by the end of that year...
Ever since we've been patiently drumming our fingers. Until now, that is.
It has certainly cost Spotify. We recently docked the service a star when we reconsidered our Spotify review. We concluded that ""it falls behind the sound-prioritising pack... we’re no longer willing to throw the world’s most popular streaming service a bone in light of their music discovery and catalogue edging its rivals."
Lossless could change all that. So exactly what quality will you get? How much does it cost? And is it included in the free tier? (Spoiler alert: no.) Read on for all the details.
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Spotify Lossless release date and launch delay
- Spotify announced HiFi tier in February 2021, promising a launch that year
- Delayed due to licensing negotiations
- Lossless eventually launched September 2025
After years of waiting for Spotify HiFi to show up after an initial teaser in 2017, we began to wonder whether it would ever get the green light. On 22nd February 2021, the company officially announced Spotify HiFi to the world at its 'Stream On' event and promised to launch Spotify HiFi "beginning later this year".
That phrasing led us to believe it would be nearer the end of 2021 rather than imminently, and as the year drew to a close our fingers remain crossed that Spotify HiFi would indeed be the streaming giant's Christmas present to us all.
How naive we were.
A leaked video followed, giving us a glimpse of the HiFi offering, and since then unearthed app code suggested a few twists and turns in the Spotify plan. Which is putting it mildly.
Lossless finally launched in September 2025. So what happened?
In January 2022, Spotify responded to the endless queries on its Spotify Community Forum with this statement: "We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We will of course update you here when we can."
This was cemented by CEO Daniel Ek's subsequent comments to investors and analysts. During an earnings call in February 2022 – almost a full year after Spotify HiFi was announced – he failed to confirm if the service would even launch in 2022.
He said the service was caught up in licensing negotiations, and added that Spotify was in "constant dialogue" with music labels about bringing the feature to market. From a technology perspective, better-quality Spotify was supposedly ready to go for years; it was the economics of it all that took some working out.
Hopes were high that it would launch imminently when a Reddit user spotted a HiFi icon in their Spotify iOS app. There was a leaked video, posted online by another Reddit user, that seemed to offer a brief tour of the streaming giant's much-anticipated lossless audio tier, too. But again, to no avail.
Months went by. Then in March 2023 a Reddit user claimed to have been sent a survey by Spotify mentioning a hypothetical premium tier called... Spotify Platinum. Hmm.
The survey reportedly asked user u/nearlymind if they would consider switching to Spotify Platinum in the "next 30 days" for features that include 'HiFi' and various others including 'Studio Sound', 'Headphone Tuner', 'Library Pro' and 'Playlist Pro', for a rather steep monthly fee of $19.99.
Spotify HiFi and Platinum weren't the only names floating around, either. In June 2023, Bloomberg reported that the new tier was being referred to as Spotify Supremium, and this was backed up by source code revealed on Reddit.
The report claimed that in addition to higher-quality audio, the tier would also offer expanded audiobook access.
A subsequent report (The Verge, April 2024) claimed that the Supremium name had been nixed in favour of packaging the high-res streaming as a 'Music Pro' add-on instead, alongside other features such as headphone optimisation and advanced mixing tools. This 'Music Pro' name was since cited in more recent reports, including one from Bloomberg in 2025. But it turned out to be wide of the mark.
Still, our hopes remained alive that the feature would launch in some form or other. Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström told The Verge last year that offering lossless audio was still the plan, though he stopped short of giving any kind of timescale on when it would be available.
"We’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners," Söderström said. "The industry changed and we had to adapt." This is no doubt referring to Apple, Amazon and Tidal deciding to offer lossless, hi-res streaming at no extra cost since Spotify announced its HiFi tier.
On a July 2024 earnings call, Ek described a higher-quality Spotify as being "in early days". “The plan here is to offer a much better version of Spotify,” he said. “Think something like $5 above the current premium tier.
"So it’s probably around a $17 or $18 price point, but sort of a deluxe version of Spotify that has all of the benefits that the normal Spotify version has, but a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about just yet."
In the end, the market forced Spotify's hand. Spotify Lossless is free to all Premium users, so carries no extra cost (outside of the expense of a Premium subscription, of course).
It will roll out to 50 countries throughout October. It's already rolling out to Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US and UK.
Still, that's nowhere near Spotify's global reach of around 180 countries, so expect to see the rollout widen soon.
Premium subscribers will get a notification once Lossless is available for them.
Spotify Lossless price
- Included in a Spotify Premium subscription for £12 / $12
- Still slightly pricier than rivals, though cheaper than predicted
To say Spotify was beaten to the punch in offering higher-quality streaming would be an understatement. Pretty much all of its rival music streaming services got there first, and without charging extra for it.
In 2021, Apple announced it was bringing lossless CD-quality and hi-res streams to all Apple Music subscribers at no extra cost.
That spurred on Amazon, who already had a hi-res offering, to align its pricing with Apple shortly after. And Tidal – one of the originators of hi-res streaming and historically a comparatively pricey option – followed suit in 2024, reducing its subscription fee to price-match its competitors.
Qobuz is another competitive hi-res streaming option.
Now Spotify Lossless is here, we know it doesn't cost any extra, but is included as part of a Premium subscription. But the rumours didn't bode well.
A Bloomberg report in June 2024 reported that Spotify HiFi would add an extra $5 to whatever tier (Free or Premium) the user was currently subscribed to. This tallied with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's quote soon after (“Think something like $5 above the current premium tier. So it’s probably around a $17 or $18 price point"). Bloomberg reported in February 2025 that the tier would incur a $5.99 add-on cost.
But in the end, Spotify couldn't do it. It would have been business suicide to charge more than its rivals, especially after launching so much later.
Spotify also raised its prices in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Another extra charge would likely have cost it some customers.
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Can you get a Spotify Lossless free trial?
You can. Lossless comes as part of Spotify's Premium subscription. The service currently offers a three-month free trial on its website – sign up, and you'll have nothing to pay for three months, so you can try Lossless for yourself once it launches.
You can cancel any time, so there's no obligation to stay subscribed. The offer isn't always available, however, so don't dilly-dally.
Spotify Lossless audio quality
- Better-than-CD (24-bit/44.1kHz) audio
- Rivals offer higher quality
Spotify Lossless delivers audio in up to 24-bit/44.1kHz in FLAC across "nearly every song" in Spotify's catalogue. That's just higher than CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), and much higher than Spotify's standard 320kbps streams.
But it's lower than its rivals. Apple, Amazon, Tidal and Qobuz's hi-res streams max out at 9216kbps (24-bit/192kHz), though most tracks in the libraries have bitrates between 24-bit/44.1kHz and 96kHz.
Spotify's quality might seem a little disappointing, especially to those with transparent hi-fi setups that will reveal the difference in bitrates. But we'll reserve judgement until we've heard them and written the full review.
For the uninitiated, lossless, CD-quality audio files carry more data and are consequently richer in detail. Hi-res audio files carry more data yet again and, yes, offer even more detail. Check out our complete guide on high-resolution audio for a lowdown on what higher bitrates actually mean.
When Spotify first announced the HiFi tier (as it was then called) in 2021, it said it would deliver “music in lossless audio format, with CD quality”. So it's actually over-delivered on that part of the promise.
The leaks were largely correct. App code first unearthed in April 2024 suggested that Spotify streams would max out at 24-bit/44.1kHz, and further recent leaked screenshots (May 2024) and leaked app code (June 2025) backed that up.
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Spotify Lossless features
The big one is that Lossless is compatible with Spotify Connect. This is Spotify's way of bypassing your mobile device, letting you play its catalogue over wi-fi to any compatible audio product in your home.
That means it will work with a range of devices, including some more 'proper' hi-fi kit. There's more on this in the next section.
Most of the service's library is available in Lossless, and it supports staple Spotify features like DJ, Jam, AI Playlist, brand new Mix and daylist.
Spotify makes no mention of Lossless supporting immersive audio formats like 360 Reality Audio, spatial audio and Dolby Atmos Music, which are supported by Tidal, Amazon and Apple.
Streaming services and devices are increasingly focussing on such '3D audio' mixes – the Sonos Era 300 was designed with spatial audio in mind. Though we have found immersive audio streaming a bit hit-and-miss, so maybe its omission won't be the end of the world.
Spotify gives you custom settings for wi-fi, cellular and downloads. You can choose between Low, Normal, High, Very High, and the new Lossless music quality, depending on when and where you're listening.
It will show you how much data each of these requires so you don't go over your data allowance and incur a huge mobile bill.
Spotify Lossless device compatibility
- Works via Spotify Connect
- Third-party support from Sony, Bose, Samsung and Sennheiser
Spotify announced back in 2021 that its planned CD-quality streams would be compatible with Spotify Connect, which is an easy way of wirelessly playing streams from the native Spotify app on a phone or tablet to a Connect-compatible device over wi-fi. It cuts out convoluted Bluetooth pairing.
But now we know there's a host of third-party support, including devices from Sony, Bose, Samsung and Sennheiser. Sonos and Amazon devices will become compatible in October 2025.
Now you'll need to be careful which devices you use – the wrong ones won't give you the full benefit. Spotify recommends streaming lossless music over wi-fi, and using wired headphones or speakers (or a non-Bluetooth connection like Spotify Connect). That's because Bluetooth will compress the sound, losing the extra detail that lossless quality provides.
Spotify Lossless is available on mobile, desktop and tablet devices.
MORE:
Here are the hi-res music streaming services compared
How Spotify saved the music industry but left some genres behind
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