Audiobooks on Spotify: Here’s the full story

(Spoiler: When we launched Audiobooks in 2022, we wanted to deliver a super awesome and easy user experience. But once again, Apple stood in the way—
this time, in addition to consumers being hurt, authors and publishers are also being punished.)

Everyone loves a good story.

And while reading is a wonderful thing, everything changes when you set off on a great adventure, unravel mysteries, or explore our world guided by a voice other than your own. That’s why we were so excited to make more than 350,000 audiobook titles available for purchase to Spotify listeners in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.  Just as we did with podcasts and music, we’re working to unlock a huge opportunity for authors and publishers to connect with hundreds of millions of Spotify listeners around the world.

Spotify’s goal (as always) is to bring the best we have to offer to our fans around the world. And that means delivering an audio experience that’s intuitive on a platform where it’s easy for authors to connect with you, and even easier for you to dive into the stories you’re captivated by.

How we wanted to deliver on iOS for a la carte audiobooks

Open Spotify app

1

PURCHASE YOUR NEW FAVORITE AUDIOBOOK

2

Enjoy!

3

  1. Open Spotify app
  2. PURCHASE YOUR NEW FAVORITE AUDIOBOOK
  3. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, Apple sees things differently—because fair competition is the last thing Apple wants. So, for books available for individual purchase, Apple has forced iOS users to jump through extra hoops (as many as 10 hoops and counting).

Here's what Apple won’t allow you or Spotify to do:

Purchase an audiobook

in the Spotify app on iOS without using Apple’s overpriced and inferior IAP

Explain why you can’t

purchase audiobooks in the Spotify app on iOS

Explain where or how

to make an audiobook purchase outside the app

include a link

to send you directly to an audiobooks purchase page outside of iOS

Send you an email

(that you ask for!) that includes easy to follow audiobooks purchase info

Answer your questions

about audiobooks via an email you’ve asked for (even without our mentioning of purchasing or pricing)

Tell you the cost

of the audiobook in the app or in a subsequent email

Give you tips

to find your way through this convoluted process

But we love tackling a challenge. We’ve been working to provide our consumers with a better experience since we launched Audiobooks, hoping to innovate and improve this experience in the face of Apple’s unfair and anticompetitive restrictions. We now offer a first-of-its-kind audiobook offering for Spotify Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia that creates a super seamless listening experience for audiobooks. (We’re working to bring this to other markets around the world in the coming months.)

However, this isn’t a solution that works for all users and we wish we could provide such a simple process for accessing audiobooks for all customers around the world. Apple sadly still makes the process for purchasing audiobooks a la carte clunky and confusing for consumers who don’t have  Premium outside those markets. It’s frustrating for us, and incredibly unfair for you.

Spotify has tried time and time again to appease Apple in a way that will follow their rules but won’t make the entire experience terrible—and Apple has said no each and every time, and they send us back to the drawing board without clear direction. Our initial flow? REJECTED. Our first fix? REJECTED. Our second fix? Again, REJECTED. The third fix? Approved, but an experience dictated by Apple at your expense.

If you’re new here:

Apple doesn’t just make the rules. They also arbitrarily change them to favor their own services and punish app developers who choose not to implement in-app purchases (IAP). And in this case that means audiobook listeners as well as authors and publishers bear the brunt, too.

Apple rules are artificially constraining the potential for audiobooks to enrich our lives every day. It’s just not fair, but that’s the game they play. Over and over again.

Head to spotify.com/audiobooks to learn how to access audiobooks on Spotify!