Pandora launches new option for families

New subscription tier allows six listeners for $14.99 per month

In an effort to add to its base of paid subscribers, which still trails the numbers of rivals Apple Music and Spotify, Oakland-based Pandora is rolling out a new family tier of its Pandora Premium music-streaming service.

The new option, called Pandora Premium Family, will cost $14.99 a month, or $164.88 for an annual subscription, which, in effect gives a subscriber a year of service for the price of 11 months. Up to six different Pandora accounts can be included in the new family subscription plan.

The plan is similar to those offered by Apple Music and Spotify, which also offer six accounts on a family subscription for $14.99 a month.

Pandora’s newest subscription tier includes all the features of its Pandora Premium service, including ondemand song selection, the ability to create radio stations and customized playlists, download music to listen to offline and listen to higher-quality music streams without any ads.

A single Pandora Premium account costs $9.99 a month, while the Pandora Plus subscription option offers ad-free music streaming, but not on-demand song selection, for $4.99 a month.

When Pandora reported its first-quarter results on May 3, it said it had 72.3 million active listeners. Of that number, Pandora reported 5.63 million paid subscribers, a 19 percent increase over the same period a year ago. Pandora’s paid subscribers remain far behind Apple Music, with its approximately 40 million subscriptions, and Spotify, which has more than 70 million paying members.

Pandora didn’t launch its paid-subscriber option until it rolled out Pandora Plus in September 2016, while Pandora Premium didn’t launch until March 2017.