Amazon have launched their long-awaited standalone music streaming service and are immediately competing with rivals offering cheaper subscription prices.

In June 2014 Amazon launched a music streaming service alongside free shipping and a video service with Amazon Prime. Whilst it saw surprising success it was mostly overshadowed by it’s independent competitors like Spotify and Apple Music. Amazon knew that they had to offer music streaming on it’s own outside of Prime if they wanted it to be it’s own success, so that’s exactly what they’ve done.

Amazon Music Unlimited is a fully fledged music streaming service that comes with a sexy new app for mobiles and desktop and an expanded music library of roughly 30 million songs. The service is available for the standard price of $10 a month but comes with two special offers to entice listeners with. Amazon Prime members can sign up for a discounted $7.99 a month or $79 for the year, and Amazon Echo speaker users have the cheapest option of all with a $3.99 monthly offering, however you’re restricted listen on that speaker only.

Amazon Music unlimited pricing plans

Amazon’s Echo speakers provide a mixed bag of features from home assistant, music player, planner, and more thanks to it’s smart artificial intelligence Alexa. With Alexa music streaming from Amazon is a breeze, as Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says: “If you want a sense of the future of voice-controlled music, go ahead and ask Alexa for a free Music Unlimited trial, and play around on your Echo. If you don’t know the name of a song but know a few lyrics, if you want to hear songs from a specific decade, or even if you’re looking for music to match your mood, just ask.”

Beyond it’s pricing options Amazon Music Unlimited seems to be much the same as any other music streaming service. There’s a huge library of music you can listen to for an unlimited time, save tracks to listen to offline, and access the service across multiple devices (except with the Echo subscription). Whether the possible discounted subscriptions give Amazon enough power to rival streaming powerhouses like Spotify will have to be seen.

Amazon Music Unlimited is available in the US now and is expected to launch in the UK, Germany and Austria by the end of the year. To sign up either head to www.amazon.com/AmazonMusicUnlimited or if you have an Amazon Echo speaker just ask Alexa to start your free trial.