Recommended VPN for Spotify 2024

Spotify is expanding their music streaming business under a very complicated licensing scheme, which in turn effectively prevents them from operating in certain markets. This means that you can experience difficulties accessing your Spotify account in certain locations such as all of Africa (with the sole exception of South Africa), China, India, Pakistan, and Russia, among others. Check the full list of countries where Spotify is available. You may still need a VPN for accessing Spotify, which we’ll discuss further in this article.

You need to consider a combination of factors when selecting a feasible VPN for Spotify. Those features include bandwidth and internet speed, server locations, uptime, encryption options, log policy, and others. These are all factors we take into account when reviewing Spotify VPNs.

According to reports by CNBC, Spotify is planning to file for IPO now that it has close to 160 million active monthly users and 71 million paying subscribers (see below).

Source: Statista

It is possible that the company may be forced to adopt a simpler licensing policy if Spotify is to attract investors in order to go public.

Spotify operates under two classes of licenses: Sound Recording License agreements and Musical Composition License Agreements. Sound Recording License agreements pertain to the rights to a particular recording, while Musical Composition License Agreements govern relationships with the people who own the rights to the song.

Spotify also deals with three leading record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment Group, and Warner Music Group. Sony Music is an investor in Spotify with stock holdings of over 5%.

Relationships between independent labels and Spotify are governed by a deal with Music and Entertainment Rights Licensing Independent Network (Merlin) that covers the rights over digital recordings.

As we said before, this is a very complex licensing structure, so Spotify must make sure it complies with legislation in various jurisdictions and must secure perfect contractual and copyright relationships with a great variety of entities and individuals. This forces them to track the IP addresses of their free and paid users, mainly to ensure compliance with any local copyright laws.

Therefore, you should not be surprised if Spotify is detecting your physical location and IP address and prevents you from accessing your account. You can continue streaming your favorite music on Spotify by using one of the above-listed VPN services to mask your current server IP address.

VPN services are doing just that – they provide you with a different IP address to connect to online services and websites. However, you can use a VPN for more than just connecting to Spotify from around the world.

Other uses for a Spotify VPN

Contrary to popular belief, a virtual private network application is not only a tool to encrypt traffic or protect online privacy at home. You may need a VPN in a variety of scenarios, including both when traveling abroad and performing your daily tasks at the office.

System administrators tend to block certain online services and websites on corporate servers and for a good reason. Spotify, while not a service that would install malicious code on company servers, may still be blocked. Your employer may decide that streaming audio at work is not a good idea. When you need to boost your productivity,  a VPN may help you stream music from Spotify at your desk. A good number of other useful sites and/or online services could be on a system administrator’s blacklist as well.  In most cases, one of the recommended VPNs from our list would make it possible to access these web addresses.

Anyone with basic technical skills can block an IP address, a range of IP addresses, or a specific URL using the settings of a corporate server. If it is not openly violating a company policy, you can certainly use a VPN to avoid such restrictions.

Using free VPNs for Spotify

You can use a free VPN for accessing your Spotify account abroad or at work, but you have to bear in mind that free VPN use usually still comes at a price. Obviously, a free service assumes you won’t purchase a plan. What else can they sell to finance their operations? The answer is your private data and browsing history. A recent example with a popular VPN provider such as Hotspot Shield makes the case for free VPNs leaking user data even worse.

Researchers have found that an overwhelming number of free VPN services – and there are a lot of them – do not provide any service at all. Some of them may even promote themselves as tools to access an online service that is accessible for free and without any international restrictions.

Other VPN providers will offer you free VPN service, but it will come with certain restrictions. As we mentioned, you need unlimited bandwidth and the fastest speed possible to stream audio and video, especially if you do so on multiple devices simultaneously. This scenario is most likely in your home. Even the best free VPN cannot offer these kinds of appropriate speeds or bandwidths.

You can avoid all the hassle and insecurity of free VPNs by simply opting for a plan with a trusted VPN provider. Checking our list of top VPNs for Spotify reveals that you can get VPN service for as low as below $4 a month with a biannual plan, while the annual plans are averaging $5 to $6 a month.

Instead of risking it with a free VPN, we highly recommend you consider a paid VPN subscription that offers all the expected functionality and works well with Spotify. You’ll only really be able to get out the most of Spotify’s music streaming service with a paid VPN.

Spotify at a glance

Spotify can offer you a lot to warrant a VPN subscription that allows you to access the service anytime and from anywhere while using multiple devices. A few important facts about Spotify as of January 1, 2018:

• Subscribers: 71 million
• Active users: 159 million
• Revenue paid to holders of rights: $9.8 billion (as at Dec 31, 2017)
• Number of songs: Over 35 million
• Number of playlists: Over 2 billion
• Available in: 65 countries

The company is valued at some $19 billion but has yet to make a profit after being founded by Daniel Ek in 2006. Since then, Spotify had acquired 12 other companies and completed two funding rounds, according to their CrunchBase profile.

They have two pricing tiers: a free plan and a paid plan. The only feature outside music streaming that a free plan has to offer is the shuffle play feature. The paid plan provides this functionality and also ad-free experience, unlimited skips, offline mode, a “play any track” function, and better audio quality.

Spotify’s monthly premium plans vary by country. For example, Spotify Premium costs CAD 9.99 a month in Canada, GBP 9.99 in the United Kingdom,  $9.99 in the United States,  AUD 11.99 in Australia, and SVC 5.99 in El Salvador. Spotify also offers a family plan for US users at $14.99.