Double Dipping

---

Platforms monetise the same user in two ways at once - by showing ads and charging a subscription - or they charge for one product benefit while keeping ads in parts of the experience. The result is higher ARPU with limited product give-back.

• To lift Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) without raising the core subscription headline price.
• To de-risk revenue with two streams that are cyclical in different ways.
• To price-segment users by tolerance for ads and willingness to pay.

• From 5 February 2024, Prime Video added ads for UK Prime members. Removing them costs an extra £2.99 per month on top of Prime. Amazon framed this as funding ongoing content investment.
• Adoption of the default ad tier is very high. Barb’s UK panel shows c.87% of Prime Video homes on the ad tier in Q1–Q2 2025. In Q2 2025 that equated to about 12.0m UK homes.
   

Interpretation. Customers pay for Prime but still get ads unless they pay more. This is a clear, deliberate double-monetisation design.

• Spotify confirms Premium removes ads from music, but podcasts can still include ads (host-read, third-party or dynamically inserted) for Premium users. This is by design and part of Spotify’s monetisation for creators and Spotify’s ad marketplace.
• Scale and money: Q2 2025 Premium subscribers were 276m, MAUs 696m; Spotify’s Q2 2025 ad-supported revenue was €453m, reflecting growth across music and podcast ads.
   

Interpretation. Even paying subscribers can generate advertising revenue via podcasts. Spotify captures subscription ARPU and ad spend in the same session.

• X sells “Premium” and “Premium+”. Only Premium+ is largely ad-free across core timelines; even then X states subscribers may still see occasional sponsored content. In February 2025, X increased Premium+ prices (including in the UK).
   

Interpretation. Most paying subscribers still see ads unless they pay for the most expensive tier. That’s a stacked monetisation ladder rather than a clean swap of ads for fees.

• Meta Verified (blue tick, support, impersonation protection) is a paid subscription that does not remove ads. UK pricing has been around £9.99–£11.99 per month per platform.
• Ad-free option (UK, 2025): Meta is rolling out a separate subscription that removes ads on Facebook/Instagram for £2.99/month on the web or £3.99/month on iOS/Android for one account. Users choosing the paid ad-free plan will not see ads and their data won’t be used for advertising.
   

Interpretation. A user can pay Meta (for Verified) and still be monetised by ads unless they pay again for the distinct “no-ads” plan.

• YouTube Music and Premium surpassed 100m subscribers by Feb 2024. Q2 2025 YouTube ad revenue was about $9.8bn for the quarter. Premium generally removes platform ads, but creators’ native sponsorships remain.
   

Interpretation. YouTube runs parallel ad and subscription businesses at scale. It’s less a per-user double dip (for Premium users) and more a portfolio double engine across the user base.

• Higher effective price over time as “ad-free” becomes a paid add-on, not the default.
• More complex choices and confusion about which payments actually remove ads.
• Ad load creep, especially in podcasts and video where dynamic insertion can expand inventory.

• ARPU uplift without headline price rises.
• Better revenue resilience across cycles.
• Regulatory scrutiny where “pay-or-consent” affects data use and competition.

• You pay for a subscription but still see ads in parts of the product.
• The ad-free experience sits behind a second, higher-priced tier.
• “Status” or “support” subscriptions exist alongside a separate “no-ads” fee.
• Platform statements specify “ad-free music” only, or “most areas” ad-free, leaving room for ads elsewhere.

• The most unambiguous UK example is Amazon Prime Video: Prime fee plus ads unless you pay a further £2.99 per month.
• Spotify monetises Premium users with podcast ads while charging the subscription - by design, and at scale.
• X and Meta use layered subscriptions where ad-removal is either partial, only at a top tier, or sold as a separate product.