Satellite and streaming audio service SiriusXM is rolling out a new, lower-priced ad-supported tier, in an apparent effort to compete with services like Spotify and grow its advertising platform.
The new SiriusXM Play will come with a “monthly price of less than $7” and will initially have half the ad load of conventional AM/FM radio stations in the US, the company said in a statement on Tuesday (July 15).
SiriusXM operates a satellite radio service primarily for in-car use, a streaming app, and the SiriusXM Podcast Network. It boasts 160 million users (inclusive of Pandora and SoundCloud listeners using its app).
The company’s existing Basic plan offers access to music, videos and podcasts via satellite and streaming for $9.99 a month, while the All Access tier additionally offers talk, news and sports channels for $24.98 a month.
For now, SiriusXM Play is available “on a limited basis,” with a broader rollout and more details coming in the months ahead, the company said. It expects the new ad-supported tier to be available to nearly 100 million vehicles by the end of 2025.
SiriusXM COO Wayne Thorsen hinted that the company is aiming to take a larger share of the music streaming market.
“SiriusXM Play presents us with an incredible opportunity to thoughtfully scale our audio service on the road and off to even more listeners across North America,” he said in a statement.
“With Play, we can reach and engage with new, more price-sensitive listeners with a low-cost, ad-supported subscription with more than 130 channels available in-car and so much more in-app, and leverage our strengths across both content and technology as the premium audio leader in-car to deliver this compelling offering to consumers and advertisers alike.”
“SiriusXM Play presents us with an incredible opportunity to thoughtfully scale our audio service on the road and off to even more listeners across North America.”
Wayne Thorsen, SiriusXM
A low-cost, ad-supported music tier is something that some in the music industry have been advocating for – but specifically for music streaming services, where ad-supported tiers have so far been free for subscribers.
“While free tiers attract billions of monthly users, their poor contribution to streaming monetization means their primary purpose is to convert users into paying subscribers,” Sony Music Group Chairman Rob Stringer said last year.
Noting that “the price gap between free and paid has gotten wider in mature markets,” Stringer said he hopes that “our partners close that gap by asking consumers using ad-supported services to additionally pay a modest fee.”
Most recently, speaking during a Q&A session at Sony Group’s 2025 Business Segment Presentation for investors last month, Stringer noted that “there hasn’t been a huge improvement in ad-supported revenue in the last few years on these DSP platforms”.
He added: “We’d obviously like to see that happen. We would like to see the free tier be more closely looked at in terms of whether there actually was a free tier in some of the more mature markets, or whether there was a different structuring of how we would get revenue from the free tier, not just via advertising, but also by hopefully trying to convince the consumer in those tiers to upgrade to a subscription.”
Meanwhile, in this year’s Music In The Air report, Goldman Sachs threw some weight behind that idea, noting that that “the audio ad-supported streaming model / monetization may need to evolve over time as a result of (i) lower advertising monetisation upside, (ii) the rising value gap between the free plans and the premium offerings as DSPs raise their premium plan pricing, and (iii) slower subscription growth, particularly in DM”.
The report added that “alternative monetization strategies include introducing an advertising light tier for a small charge similar to Netflix’s Basic with Ads subscription plan, and/or placing further restrictions on the freemium offering to improve free to paid conversion”.
The pressure to better monetize free streaming tiers has only grown in the US over the past year, with evidence mounting of a slowdown in market growth. Data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released in March showed that recorded music trade revenues rose just 3.6% YoY in 2024, barely beating the country’s inflation rate of around 3%.
“As premium plan pricing continues to improve, we believe that the audio ad-supported streaming offering will also need to evolve to improve the monetization of ad-supported users.”
Goldman Sachs, Music In The Air
And data released by research firm Luminate this week showed that on-demand streaming in the US grew 4.6% YoY in the first half of 2025, much slower than the 12.6% recorded in the world outside the US.
Nonetheless, Spotify and the other major music streaming players that offer a free tier haven’t introduced a monthly fee for their ad-supported tiers, in the US or anywhere else. But SiriusXM’s new product will no doubt be closely watched by the industry: If it results in a spike in new subscriptions, it will strengthen the argument that low-cost ad-supported tiers can work.
In the meantime, SiriusXM is focused on playing catch-up with music streaming services on the advertising side, where it has lagged for the simple reason that its music channels have largely been ad-free until now.
The company is playing up its plans to roll out “advanced capabilities” such as enhanced targeting, dynamic ad insertions, channel takeover packages, and new measurement tools for cars equipped with SiriusXM’s 360L audio platform.
“Play is an exciting net-new opportunity for marketers looking to tap into passionate, high-quality audiences across some of SiriusXM’s most beloved music, talk, and sports channels, reaching listeners in the moments that matter,” said Scott Walker, SiriusXM’s Chief Advertising Revenue Officer.
“The car is the final frontier for digital ad-supported media. In the short term, we are opening up new inventory for marketers, including premium, curated music. In the long term, with more advanced capabilities, we have a chance to revolutionize the in-car advertising landscape.”Music Business Worldwide
