YouTube Music Subscribers Are Still Surging in 2026, Data Reveals

Earlier this week, Apple Music dropped the unexpected industry bombshell by quietly surpassing Spotify’s subscriber count in the US. But Spotify may also want to keep an eye on another fast-surging DSP: YouTube Music.

‘YouTube’ and ‘artist-friendly’ are rarely used in the same sentence. But what once looked like a premium afterthought at YouTube is now materializing into a high-growth, paid subscriber juggernaut that could eventually spin off more substantive artist royalties.

In early 2025, DMN Pro first revealed a shocking surge in YouTube Music and packaged YouTube Premium subscribers, with the out-of-left-field subscriber spike appearing connected to several smart strategies and product enhancements at the video giant. By the time the ball dropped on 2026, YouTube Music was easily the fastest-growing music subscription service in America, with nearly 40% year-over-year subscriber gains.

Now, that ‘spike’ looks like a sustained growth spurt, with preliminary data revealing a more subdued double-digit subscriber gain continuing in 2026.

The recent gains are impressive, but still put YouTube well behind DSP subscriber hogs like Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music. But those mega-giants are currently posting single-digit year-over-year gains, at best, with slowdowns impacting higher-ARPU markets like the US.

But just how many subscribers is YouTube Music tacking onto its totals, exactly?

DMN Pro is still parsing through a mountain of subscriber data shared by major labels, publishers, distributors, and royalty accounting number-crunchers — to name a few sources. Stay tuned for our full data breakdown, but we can safely assess that YouTube Music was, well, killin’ it in Q1 2026, thanks to heavy and continued growth in its packaged YouTube Premium accounts, which bundle a bunch of YouTube goodies with YouTube Music (but importantly, not YouTube TV).

Apple Music Pulls Ahead of Spotify’s Subscriber Total, Becoming the Largest US-Based Streaming Music Platform in 2026. But Why the Sudden Change?

Suddenly, YouTube Music is getting its subscriber mojo on — and that’s a positive development for an industry that has long struggled with YouTube’s low-paying, ad-supported, artist-unfriendly freebie platform.

For now, Alphabet isn’t disclosing any subscriber data at YouTube Premium or YouTube Music. But they are pointing to aggressive, across-the-board subscriber gains.

“Beyond advertising, YouTube’s subscription business, which thrives across living room screens, is growing faster than ads, particularly driven by YouTube Music and Premium,” Alphabet Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler relayed during Alphabet’s Q2 earnings call this week.

Well, if Schindler won’t spill the beans on YouTube Music’s latest subscriber details, we will — including the critical breakdowns between packaged YouTube Premium and Music-only plans. Overall, Premium+Music packages continue to drive this success story, with takers lowering their streaming music bills while enjoying a cleaner YouTube experience.

That type of bundling is also boosting music subscriptions at Apple, which raises a critical question about the now-mature streaming music space.

Are the tech giants finally figuring out how to rope more music subscribers into lower-cost, enticing packages?

That’s a scary question for a flattening Spotify, which is focusing on bundles that include audiobooks and premium podcasts like Joe Rogan. Those perks sound great for the right subscriber, except when compared to serious, lower-priced packages that include goodies like premium TV (i.e., Apple TV), digital storage (iCloud), Prime perks, or, in the case of YouTube, ad-free and better YouTube experiences.

Perhaps seriously under-leveraging in this regard is Amazon Music, which continues to shed paying subscribers despite potentially powerful bundling options across its powerful Prime and streaming TV network. But maybe Amazon Music, like YouTube Music just two years ago, is a sleeping giant that simply needs to figure out the smartly priced Prime+Music+video mega-bundle to start luring in more subs.

On that note, maybe YouTube has even more bundling tricks up its sleeve?

During Alphabet’s earnings call, the aforementioned Schindler lumped the venerable YouTube TV alongside YouTube Premium and Music. But one source to Digital Music News urged us not to hold our breath for a mega-bundle of all three.

For starters, YouTube TV’s carriage deals are understood to result in a seriously low-margin business, with a percentage of subscriber revenue part of the negotiated fees to networks. Lumping that into Premium+Music would create the killer bundle, but also siphon off revenues from higher-margin subscriber accounts.

Beyond that, YouTube TV is a play for the coveted living room entertainment system, while on-demand music streaming and YouTube-watching tend to be laptop and phone-based activities. Certainly there’s overlap, but perhaps YouTube’s data suggests these are different user camps.

Theorizing aside, YouTube’s current bundle is definitely working, and seriously boosting paid music subscriptions. But what kind of numbers and gains are we talkin’ here? Stay tuned for the meaty details in our next DMN Pro Weekly Report.

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