Spotify is preparing a major expansion of its audiobook business, with plans to make the service available to virtually all of its 750 million monthly active users across 180 countries by the end of 2026.
Announced Wednesday (Oct. 7), the rollout signals that books are becoming an increasingly important part of the Swedish streaming company’s wider subscription strategy. Spotify is betting that some listeners will pay substantially more each month for additional audiobook time alongside their existing premium service.
The company first offered audiobooks to premium individual subscribers in the U.S. and U.K. three years ago before expanding the service to 22 markets. Spotify said listening hours jumped 60% between 2024 and 2025, reflecting rapid adoption of the format.
Audiobooks+ drives a new subscription tier
In mid-2025, Spotify introduced Audiobooks+, an add-on costing $11.99 per month for premium subscribers, who pay $12.99. The additional plan doubles a user’s monthly audiobook allowance from 15 hours to 30 hours.
Spotify says more than 1 million premium subscribers are now paying for Audiobooks+. As of July, the plan’s annual recurring revenue was estimated at $100 million.
Some Audiobooks+ customers are also purchasing extra blocks of listening time after using their 30 monthly hours, Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström said during the company’s investor presentation in May.
“These are very valuable users,” Norström said. “These subscribers have lifetime values that are multiples of premium-only users. They spend far more and they stay much longer.”
The planned expansion will bring more titles and additional languages to new markets. Spotify executives have also identified younger consumers as an important audience, saying roughly half of audiobook listeners are under 35.
Owen Smith, Spotify’s global head of books, framed the initiative as an effort to make books easier to discover and fit them more naturally into listeners’ routines.
“We’re building products that help people discover new books, that give them more chances to enjoy them, and that weave stories into every single part of their day, because nobody ever regrets time spent with a good book,” Smith said during a company press briefing on Monday (Oct. 5).
Spotify connects physical books with streaming
The company’s book ambitions extend beyond conventional audiobook streaming. A partnership with Bookshop.org allows subscribers to purchase print editions, while Spotify’s Page Match feature connects physical reading with listening inside the app.
Page Match lets a subscriber move from a printed book to Spotify and begin hearing the audiobook at the exact page where the reader stopped. Spotify claims people using the feature finish books twice as fast as other readers. Two-thirds of Page Match users are under 35, according to the company.
Smith described Page Match in May as “one of our most consistently used and highest performing product launches.”
“We are creating healthy reading habits and high-value behavior that becomes even more powerful when it sits inside the broader Spotify ecosystem,” he said.
Spotify is also building services aimed at authors and publishers. Through Spotify for Authors, the company shares audiobook-consumption data and marketing information with publishing partners and writers.
Another initiative, Spotify Audiobooks Selects, gives independent authors tools to create professional-grade audiobooks. The program also offers an AI voice-over option using technology from ElevenLabs.
What Happens Next?
Spotify’s audiobook service is set to reach virtually all of its monthly active users by the end of 2026. The expansion will test whether the growth already seen in listening hours — and the early demand for Audiobooks+ — can translate across more countries, languages and titles.
With paid listening upgrades, print-book purchases, Page Match and services for authors all feeding into the same platform, Spotify is positioning books as more than an extra feature. They are becoming a broader part of how the company attracts, retains and monetizes its audience.