Spotify’s HiFi add-on could cost an extra $5 per month

Spotify is getting ready to launch a premium add-on that offers access to high-fidelity audio, according to a report from Bloomberg. The new tier will reportedly cost $5 extra and will also come with tools to help users create playlists and manage music libraries.

A source familiar with Spotify tells Bloomberg that users will be able to add the HiFi audio tier to their existing plans. If added to the Spotify Premium plan, which goes up in price to $11.99 next month, it will cost $16.99. Bloomberg reports that the add-on will also give users the ability to generate custom playlists for specific activities, dates, and times of year.

“At Spotify, we are constantly exploring ideas to improve our product offering and offer value to users,” Spotify spokesperson Grey Munford said in a statement to The Verge. “But we don’t comment on speculation around possible new features and do not have anything new to share at this time.”

Spotify initially said its HiFi audio feature would arrive in 2021, but that never happened. Since then, we’ve heard many rumors about Spotify’s work on the tier, including last year’s report from Bloomberg that revealed the service is working on a higher-priced “Supremium” HiFi plan. Another report from The Wall Street Journal indicates that Spotify could bundle a remix feature to speed up tracks within the add-on.

Code spotted within the Spotify app last year also suggests that the tier could come with 24-bit lossless audio, the ability to create playlists with AI, a feature that filters songs in a playlist by mood, and more. In April, a Reddit user spotted a string of code in the app that says “lossless has arrived,” while another Redditor later posted leaked UI elements mentioning lossless quality of up to 2,117kbps and the availability of 24-bit / 44.1kHz for “limited songs” using the FLAC audio format.

Update, June 11th: Added a statement from Spotify.