YouTube Music now requires users to have a premium subscription to view song lyrics. Google has yet to confirm the change, but users of the free tier have started posting screenshots of blocked lyrics on Reddit.
As shown in the images, YouTube Music allows users to view the lyrics up to five times for free. Once they’ve exhausted their limited access, they’ll only see the first two lines. The rest is a blur. They also see a banner at the top of the card that says, “You have 0 views left. Unlock tunes with Premium.”
According to 9to5 Google, the platform had been testing a paywall for the tune for the past few months. It looks like it’s rolling out to users worldwide right now.
A standalone YouTube Music Premium subscription costs $10.99 per month in the US. In addition to lyrics, it opens up features for ad-free listening, offline downloads, background play, easy switching between audio and video, and more. If you pay $2 more, you can get similar benefits for the YouTube app.
The news about the lyrics about YouTube Music’s paywall comes just days after Spotify rolled out some updates to its lyrics features. On Spotify, you can now get lyrics with your offline downloads, translations are ready for users worldwide, and a new preview window now shows two lines of lyrics in the Playing tab. Spotify Premium costs $12.99 per month, but access to basic tunes remains free for all non-paying listeners.
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YouTube Music’s latest move is aimed at attracting more users to the premium subscription. As 9to5 Google notes, YouTube earned more than $60 billion from advertising and subscriptions in 2025 alone.
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Jibeen is a tech news writer based in Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of the iGex blog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information for a wider audience.
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