Apple Music subscription prices rise by up to 28 per cent in India; Apple One plans unchanged

The family hike in India, at 28 per cent, is the steepest of the three tiers by a distance. Representational pic

Apple Music's India pricing has held steady since its last revision - long enough that most subscribers stopped thinking about the monthly deduction altogether. However, that changed this week. The tech giant has raised Apple Music subscription prices in India by up to 28 per cent, while keeping its Apple One bundle pricing untouched.

Here's what has changed for the popular music streaming service.

Apple Music India pricing July 2026

Individual: Rs 119 → Rs 139 per month (17 per cent hike)
Family: Rs 179 → Rs 229 per month (28 per cent hike)
Student: Rs 59 → Rs 69 per month (17 per cent hike)

In percentage terms, India's individual and student hikes are noticeably steeper than what Apple applied in the US, where the individual plan went up roughly 9 per cent from USD 10.99 to USD 11.99. The family hike in India, at 28 per cent, is the steepest of the three tiers by a distance. Apple has not issued an India-specific statement on the revision, but the new prices are already reflected on Apple's India pricing pages. This is also the second Apple price move in as many months - the company raised MacBook and iPad prices in June, citing surging memory costs.

The company's explanation, given in a statement to Music Business Worldwide, is straightforward: "As a result of rising licensing costs, Apple Music is increasing its subscription price beginning today."

This is the same reasoning Apple offered the last time it raised music prices - the idea being that a larger share of the higher fee flows through to artists and rights holders, not that Apple is simply padding margins. Whether that's the full picture or not, licensing costs genuinely have been climbing industry-wide, and Apple is not alone here - Spotify raised its own India and global pricing earlier this year, and Apple's marketing team didn't waste the opportunity to needle it about that on social media at the time.

Apple has also been recalibrating other parts of its playbook this year - the company recently said it would decouple critical security patches from major iOS releases to respond faster to AI-powered cyberattacks.

Apple One's India pricing sees no change and that's the interesting bit

Globally, Apple has also revised its Apple One bundle pricing. The family and premiere tiers went up in the US, though the base individual tier was left alone. In India, however, Apple One has not changed its pricing: it stays at Rs 195 a month for the individual category and Rs 365 for family - the same pricing the bundle has carried since it launched in the country six years ago. What's worth noting is India still does not get the premiere tier unlike the US/UK/Australia/Canada.

What that means in practice is that the bundle just got relatively more attractive. Apple Music Individual alone now costs Rs 139 - inching closer to the Rs 195 Apple One Individual plan - which also throws in Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud+ storage for a difference of just Rs 56 a month. Anyone already paying for two or more of those services separately should be doing that math this week.

Apple has not stated whether Apple One's India pricing will eventually catch up to the music increase or whether it's deliberately holding the line to keep the bundle's value proposition intact while the region absorbs the standalone hike.

The development also comes just weeks after Apple used WWDC 2026 to position iOS 27's overhauled Siri and Apple Intelligence features as the next reason to stay locked into its ecosystem. If you're an Apple Music subscriber in India and haven't considered Apple One before, the revised pricing may make it worth a closer look.