Music is a personal experience, so selecting the right streaming service should reflect your unique preferences. Amazon Music and Apple Music both offer comparable streaming features at similar prices, but subtle differences between the platforms may make one more suitable for your listening habits.

Below, we compare these two music giants in terms of pricing, playback quality, and more—just in time for Prime Day.

Subscriptions and Pricing

Amazon Music offers three subscription plans with different features: Free, Prime, and Unlimited. The free plan includes ads and only allows you to shuffle an artist, album, or playlist, not to play those songs in order. Amazon Music Prime, included with an Amazon Prime subscription, is ad-free but still shuffle-only. The Amazon Music Unlimited plan offers both shuffle and non-shuffle listening and HD and spatial audio for $9.99 per month for Prime members ($10.99 per month for non-Prime members). The Amazon Music Family Plan, which includes up to six accounts, is $16.99 per month.

In this comparison, we will focus on Amazon Music Unlimited.

All Apple Music subscription plans offer the same features for different users. New subscribers get one month of Apple Music for free. After that, an individual monthly subscription is $10.99 per month, and the Apple Music Family Plan (up to five accounts) is $16.99 per month. Students can opt for the Apple Music Student Plan at $5.99 per month.

Winner: Tie

Music Quality

Both Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music offer Dolby Atmos, a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories, as their highest streaming quality. Dolby Atmos provides a significant upgrade over the compressed audio of competing platforms like Spotify, pushing ad-libs and hidden instrumentals to the foreground for a more detailed sound.

Not all songs on Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music are available in Dolby Atmos, but tracks that are playable at that quality are marked with a label. Amazon Music Unlimited tracks range in quality from standard definition (SD) audio to high-definition (HD) and ultra-high-definition (UHD) lossless formats. Most Apple Music tracks, meanwhile, are available in lossless audio by default, another advantage over Spotify.

Winner: Apple Music

Mobile App Features

Both Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music offer an iPhone mobile app. Since most people listen to music on the go, we evaluated these apps by listening to music on mobile.

On both apps, song lyrics are easy to access on screen. Apple Music displays a cute animation of album art on some songs, and its “Apple Music Sing” feature lowers the artist’s voice so you can sing along more easily. Amazon Music Unlimited’s “X-Ray” feature displays fun facts about the artist as a song plays.

If you use an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV 4K, Mac, or HomePod speakers, Apple Music is conveniently available on your device. However, while Apple has a separate app for podcasts, the Amazon Music app provides access to both music and podcasts. You can choose your preference in the app’s “Home” and “Library” tabs by toggling between “Music” and “Podcasts” at the top of the screen.

After using both apps, Amazon Music Unlimited edged out Apple with a selection of suggested content that felt more relevant and robust and with its inclusion of podcasts in-app. However, Apple Music’s user interface felt more intuitive and easy to use.

Winner: Tie

Artist Compensation

According to the latest information provided by Apple Music in 2021, the platform pays an average of $0.01 per stream, although this varies by subscription plan and country or region. While no official payment information is available from Amazon Music, a 2021 estimate suggests that the platform’s average payout is significantly lower, ranging from $0.004 to $0.008 per stream.

Winner: Apple Music