Apple Music is no doubt one of the most popular music streaming platforms on the market today, with more than 40 million active users. If you’re one of them, then you’re probably paying $10 a month for access to their vast music library. That said, it wouldn’t hurt to get an Apple Music discount and save on subscription fees whenever you can.
Apple Music – How Much is a Subscription Costing You?
If you’re looking to save money on your Apple Music subscription, then it would be helpful to know that such fees vary depending on your region. In the US, people pay $9.99 per month (individual account) for access to Apple’s growing music library. The same service in India costs ₹120 or $1.75 per month. That’s a whopping 82.5 percent difference!
Now, it’s important to note that the difference in pricing depending on location isn’t at all unique to Apple Music. Many other SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms like Netflix and Spotify adopt the same strategy for offsetting differences in currency and exchange rates. Nevertheless, if you had a choice, wouldn’t you prefer to pay the lowest price possible? Well, as it turns out, you do, and it’s all a matter of changing how the service perceives your location to get the best deals. You can do just that by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service.
How to Get Apple Music at a Discount
VPN services are best known as an Internet security solution for people looking to safeguard their privacy and browse the web anonymously. What most people don’t realize is that the latter offers additional benefits that extend beyond security. In particular, a VPN can help save people a significant amount of money on their Apple Music subscription by unlocking prices that are otherwise inaccessible to them. How is this so?
One of the most compelling use cases of VPNs lies in their ability to defeat location monitoring by routing traffic to an external server located in a specific region. As a result, the destination server (In this case, Apple Music) doesn’t see the real IP address of the user; only the external VPN server.
Here are some general steps for using a VPN service to “shop around” for the best subscription fees for Apple Music:
Install and open a VPN service on your Apple device: In this case, we will be citing NordVPN:
Explore your VPN server options: Choose one from a different region (we recommend India).
Turn on the VPN: The process can vary depending on your chosen VPN provider. For NordVPN, it’s as simple as clicking on “India” or whichever server location you choose. The VPN app then automatically finds the best server for the chosen server region.
Compare regional prices: Go to Apple Music and take note of the difference in pricing from one server region to another. Using NordVPN’s India server, we find that the price for an Individual Apple Music account is a measly ₹99 per month ($1.44 USD).
Notice that the same service (Individual account) cost $9.99 per month in the US.
Subscribe and pay: Once you find the prices that you are most happy with, complete the payment and you’re done. (Note, just to be safe, we recommend that you sign up for a new Apple ID; one that cannot be associated with your real location before completing payment.) Once you’ve completed the payment, you should get the same service for a fraction of the cost!
Best VPN to Get a Discount on Apple Music
Now that you’ve seen just how easy it is to get a substantial Apple Music discount through a VPN, you might be overly eager to get started. First, you will need to choose a good VPN service that can do your bidding. VPN services are not offered as equals, and there are practically hundreds of them out there. That said, there are a few service providers that have proven themselves reliable and provide better performance compared to most other VPN companies in the market.
We recommend starting your search for a VPN service with the following:
NordVPN
NordVPN is a Panama-based VPN company with a reputation for providing premium privacy and security solutions at a reasonable cost. They have more than 4000 VPN servers all over the world, most of which offer optimal speeds sufficient for music and video streaming. Hence, users will find no shortage of options when it comes to server locations.
Another great thing about NordVPN is that they have a reputation for implementing one of the best online security solutions in the VPN market. They use 256 bit AES encryption, which is typically used by the military and some financial institutions. One unique feature of NordVPN is an option called “Double VPN” which routes data through two VPN servers for added security.
Surfshark
Surfshark is a VPN service that has just launched in 2018 yet already enjoys a good reputation in the VPN industry. Although they have fewer servers compared to other VPN companies mentioned in this list (500+ servers across 50 countries), they make up for it in terms of connection speed.
Users in the US and UK can expect connection speeds of at least 40 Mbps. Surfshark also has the geo-block feature that does an excellent job of unlocking region-locked content on the Internet which in this case, refers to better deals on subscription services.
CyberGhost
CyberGhost is another good option for a VPN service provider that you can use to unlock better prices for an Apple Music subscription. They have more than 4800 servers spread across 61 countries around the world. This makes them one of the biggest VPN networks on the market today, which is always a good thing for accessing geo-blocked content.
Of course, CyberGhost wouldn’t make it in this list if it didn’t have what it takes to hang with the best in terms of security and performance. The latter is notable in that they use Open VPN and AES-256 encryption as a default VPN protocol. CyberGhost also has a reputation for providing excellent customer support, which is easily reachable via LiveChat or support ticket.
IPVanish
If server performance and security are of the utmost concern (other than subscription discounts), then you cannot go wrong with IPVanish. The latter has been around since 1999, which makes it one of the oldest VPN companies in the market today.
IPVanish operates more than 1500 VPN servers from around the world, all of which offer unlimited bandwidth and access to geo-blocked content. This makes it ideal for music streaming and unlocking great deals across various server regions. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they also use secure AES-256 encryption to safeguard all of your activities online.
TorGuard
TorGuard is a US-based VPN company that operates more than 3000 servers from 55 countries. Like all the other VPN companies in this list, they also offer the industry-standard AES-256 encryption, which makes it a reliable option for users who are much concerned about staying safe and anonymous online.
One notable feature of TorGuard is that they have implemented an integrated IPv6 and DNS leak protection that is triggered automatically in the event of a data breach. Server speed is widely regarded as average (minimum of 9 Mbps on their Asia server) although it’s more than enough for music streaming.
Is it legal to use a VPN to get an Apple Music Discount?
At this point, you might be wondering — is it legal to use an Apple Music VPN to take advantage of the price difference across different countries? After all, the last thing you want is for Apple to ban your account as a result.
To clarify, Apple Music does not expressly forbid users from using VPNs to access discounted rates through international stores. While many countries have different rates because of currency values and taxes, Apple doesn't seem to mind if customers access its content at slightly discounted prices. Of course, if you do violate Apple Music's terms of service, the company reserves the right to suspend your account. However, there's no proof that Apple has ever done so for VPN usage.
Summary
So there you have it — how to get an Apple Music discount through the use of a VPN. As you can see, the process is relatively straightforward, and you have no shortage of options for VPN services that can help you accomplish such a feat. Practically anyone can do it, even users with no technical knowledge on VPNs.
Perhaps the best part is that the discount is not only limited to Apple Music. You can adopt the same strategy for finding better deals on other subscription and streaming services that you currently use. The same benefit even extends to car rentals, airfare, and hotel arrangements. All of them use region-locking and web monitoring to manage prices which VPNs can circumvent to tip the scales in your favor.
