While practically every streaming music service has raised prices over the past year, you still don't have to pay full price for them.

Much like in the streaming TV world, you can save on services like Spotify and Apple Music by looking in the right places. Extended trials, bundle deals, special discounts, and annual billing options can all help defray the cost of streaming music, and you can always consider cheaper tiers if your music needs are more minimal.

In light of last week's Spotify price hikes, now's a fine time to reassess your options. To make that easier, I've pulled every potential savings strategy into one big list:

First, some credit where due: The only streaming music service that hasn't raised prices yet is Pandora, whose unlimited, on-demand streaming plan still costs $10 per month for individuals and $15 for families.

Will it last? I have no idea. But the slightly lower price—and its still-excellent radio features—make it worth a fresh look for now.

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, Tidal, and Deezer all offer student discounts that cut their prices in half (or nearly in half). Spotify's student version even includes Hulu.

Military and veteran discounts are scarcer, but Tidal has one that takes 40% off its HiFi and HiFi Plus plans, and it offers the same deal for first responders. Pandora charges $8 per month for military and vets.

Apple Music and Amazon Music both offer $5 per month tiers, with a catch: You can only play music through their respective Siri and Alexa voice assistants, and Amazon's plan is limited to a single Echo speaker or Fire TV device.

Pandora's $5 per month "Plus" plan has no such voice requirements, and it offers ad-free radio stations with unlimited skips. You can also choose specific songs or albums in exchange for watching an ad first.

If you don't mind listening on shuffle mode, consider the free tiers of Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or Pandora. Instead of being able to pick individual albums or tracks, you'll get radio-style playback based on a particular artist or genre. (You can also get on-demand music via the desktop versions of Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube.)

Most of these services do have commercial breaks, but Amazon's service lets Prime subscribers go ad-free.

Oh, and remember the forbidden YouTube tricks I covered last month? Those can come in handy for free music listening as well.

I've previously written an entire newsletter about this, but by bouncing between streaming music services, you can take advantage of endless extended trials.

Sadly, Best Buy seems to have nixed its cheap Tidal deals, but you can still get multi-month Apple Music subscriptions from both Target and Best Buy. I've had luck bouncing between those two options.

By playing the streaming music field, you may also open yourself up to comeback deals from the ones you've canceled.

Spotify, for instance, periodically offers me three months for $10 total, and I found this Amazon page offering half-off for three months after my most recent extended trial expired.

Instead of being at streaming music providers' whims, it's never too late to build your own music collection and stream it to yourself with a service like Plex. I made this change eight years ago and have never regretted it.

Granted, the amount I spend on CDs and Bandcamp purchases probably outweighs the cost of a Spotify subscription, but I never have to worry about music being pulled from my collection, and it's nice knowing that most of my Bandcamp spending goes to the actual artists. It also makes my endless pursuit of cheap or free streaming—which I use mainly to discover new albums worth buying—that much easier to justify.

Overwhelmed by the options? I've thrown together a chart with the price of every major subscription streaming music service, along with all their available discounts and bundle deals. And as always, you can email me with any questions you might have.

Samsung‘s new foldables: Newman's Law of Foldable Phones states that each new generation removes one significant compromise. Such is the case with Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip5 and Fold5, which start shipping on August 11. Both phones have new hinge designs, mostly eliminating the wedge-shaped gap when their screens are folded closer. The Flip5 also has a larger outer screen, now capable of running full apps or typing out text messages like you can with Motorola's Razr Plus.

Compromises remain, though. Neither foldable ships with Samsung‘s best camera system—you’ll need the regular old Galaxy S23 Ultra for that—and the Fold5 still has an unusually narrow outer display. Prices remain high as well, at $1,800 for the Fold5 and $1,000 for the Flip5. With more competition from Google, Motorola, and potentially OnePlus—plus the fact that second-hand prices on these devices drop pretty quickly—watching and waiting still makes sense.

iPhone rumor watch: It’s August, which means you should probably hold out on buying an iPhone until new ones arrive, barring any emergencies. Per Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the iPhone 15 could be a significant upgrade, with fresh designs on the Pro line, the smaller "Dynamic Island" camera cutout on the regular line, and a long-awaited switch from Lightning to USB-C charging ports.

In the U.S., wireless carriers continue to offer deep discounts on new phones in exchange for multi-year service agreements. Unless you're seeking an unlocked device to use on a cheaper carrier, buying an iPhone 14 now won't yield any big savings. Apple will likely launch the new iPhones next month, or maybe in October.

Explorer Patcher problems: Microsoft warns that its next Windows Update might break third-party apps that modify the Start menu and taskbar. Affected apps include Explorer Patcher, whose praises I have sung in this newsletter for bringing back uncombined taskbar labels. (Microsoft is still working on restoring this feature itself.)

I've installed the Windows Update in question and while the Start menu still works, it's causing some Alt-Tab menu issues that I can only fix by using one of Explorer Patcher's alternate app-switching views. Consider uninstalling Explorer Patcher before updating, or at the very least, making sure the app is up to date as the developer issues its own fixes.

A wild new web browser: After years of invite-only beta testing, a new MacOS browser called Arc is now available to all.

It's a pretty radical shift from the likes of Chrome, with a mandatory vertical tab layout that lets you switch between different groups of web pages. Even weirder: You can customize any web page, changing up the color scheme or removing unwanted clutter.

But I mostly just enjoy the little touches, like being able to drag a tab into split-screen mode and control music or video playback via sidebar shortcuts. I always encourage browser experimentation, and this one's definitely worth a try.

(Windows users, fret not; Arc's Windows version is coming this winter.)

With back-to-school season approaching, eBay has some solid deals on new laptops, desktops, PC accessories. Shop anything on this page, and use the code SAVE4SCHOOL to get 20% off. Some highlights:

Other notable deals right now:

Got tech questions for me? Just reply to this email to get in touch.

Until next week,
Jared