Spotify Expands ‘Managed Accounts’ Parental Controls to the U.S.

Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify has officially expanded the availability of “managed accounts” parental controls, which the service is offering solely via its Family Plan.

The DSP disclosed the Family-exclusive managed accounts buildout today, after previously piloting the features in nations including Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, and New Zealand. Now, the bolstered controls are also live in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

As described by Spotify in more words, said controls allow parents to tailor a “music-only listening experience” for their children. Perhaps most importantly, this experience offers “no access to age-gated features like Messages.”

And with specific parameters tied to individual profiles, so-called account managers can further filter all explicit content, hide on-platform videos, and block the playback of certain artists as well as individual songs, according to the service.

Meanwhile, each managed account has its own recommendations and Wrapped results, Spotify spelled out.

Interestingly, far from leaving Family subscribers to explore managed accounts for themselves, Spotify dedicated north of 2,000 support-section words to describing the parental controls’ ins and outs.

Apparently, adult Family Plan subscribers can create managed accounts at the outset, switch existing accounts to managed mode, revert managed accounts back to non-managed, and set pins to stop “young listeners…from accessing features and controls for plan managers.”

(Of course, logic suggests that if inclined to stream blocked songs, those young listeners, rather than attempting to guess pin digits, would simply navigate to one of the competing platforms providing unfiltered and uncensored music access with no login required.)

In other words, this appears to be a relatively comprehensive offering. And while Spotify isn’t the only DSP looking to clean things up for minor users – Family also affords subscribers exclusive access to the standalone Spotify Kids – the managed-accounts perk is interesting given that more Individual and Duo subscribers could be making the move to Family.

At the top level, pricing within the Spotify ecosystem might be fueling the transitions; Individual costs $11.99 per month in the States, compared to $16.99 for Duo and $19.99 for Family.

Outside of Spotify, Apple Music is still holding firm on stateside pricing; both it and YouTube Music charge a comparatively affordable $16.99 per month for Family. Stated differently, there’s a competitive incentive for Spotify to sweeten the Family pot as well, and it’ll be worth closely monitoring the wider effort’s subscribership impact moving forward.