On Friday, Spotify launched a new basic subscription plan, priced at $10.99 per month. This subscription tier allows users access to millions of songs and podcast episodes without ads, but excludes access to audiobooks.

This is a change from the regular Premium Plan, which includes audiobooks and currently costs $11.99 per month. On its higher-priced Premium Plans, Spotify includes access to 15 hours of audiobook listening-time per month from a catalog of more than 250,000 titles.

The launch of Spotify’s new plan comes as a surprise to loyal users. Less than three weeks ago, Spotify made the decision to raise their prices on most of their existing plans for U.S. users.

The Individual Plan increased by $1, from $10.99 to $11.99 per month, while the Family Plan, (which can be shared by six members in a household) went up by $3, from $16.99 to $19.99 per month. Lastly, the Premium Duo tier, which offers two accounts of ad-free music listening (plus 15 hours of audiobook listening-time per month), rose by $2 to $16.99 per month.

Even though many users may benefit from this new subscription plan, Spotify is not giving it a large promotion by any means. New users cannot sign up for the plan, you can only get it by joining and then “downgrading.” Spotify’s regular Premium Plan does grant users access to 250,000 audiobooks, but only 15 hours of listening per month. The average length of books in this catalog is roughly 10 hours, meaning users are limited to listening to one book per month. With this new plan, users willing to sacrifice these 15 audiobook hours will be saving their wallets $1 a month. 

Although these margins are slim, I think it’s important for Spotify to properly advertise each of their pricing plans so their customers can make an informed decision on what they’re purchasing. And hey, if you’re feeling cheated by Spotify’s ever-changing tier system, the Apple Music community (myself included) is waiting to welcome you with open arms!