After testing in recent months, YouTube Music looks to be widely rolling out a Premium paywall for lyrics.
Lyrics in YouTube Music now require a YouTube Premium or Music Premium subscription. The middle tab in the Now Playing screen gains a new card at the top when this has rolled out to your account: “You have [x] views remaining” and “Unlock lyrics with Premium.”
Users get five free lyrics before they have to subscribe. When that happens, you’ll only see the first few lines, with everything else blurred and unscrollable.
Google has been testing this change for a few months now, and the lyrics paywall now looks to be seeing a wide rollout around the world.
YouTube Music Premium (in the US) costs $10.99 per month with ad-free playback, background listening, offline downloads, and AI features like Ask Music. Meanwhile, YouTube Premium is $13.99 and extends those benefits to the YouTube app.
Earlier this week, Google reported that it has “over 325 million paid subscriptions across consumer services, with strong adoption for Google One and YouTube Premium.” In 2025, revenue from YouTube ads and subscriptions came in at over $60 billion.
More on YouTube Music:
- YouTube Music now syncs your queue across Android, iOS, & web
- YouTube Music lyrics sharing adding AI-generated backgrounds
- YouTube Music might be settling on this Now Playing redesign
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