YouTube Music and Premium pass 150 million subscribers, up from 125 million in March 2025

YouTube's subscription business keeps growing. In Alphabet's third quarter 2026 results, published on Wednesday 28 October, the company said YouTube Music and YouTube Premium have passed 150 million subscribers globally, a figure that includes free trials.

That compares with 125 million subscribers, also including trials, which YouTube announced in March 2025. Music Business Worldwide and Digital Music News both note that this means YouTube has added more than 25 million subscribers in around 20 months. Alphabet does not break out how many of those people pay for YouTube Music on its own and how many have the full Premium bundle with ad-free video.

The subscriber growth showed up in Alphabet's wider numbers too. Revenue from subscriptions, platforms and devices rose 11 percent to $14.3 billion, which Alphabet attributed partly to YouTube Music and Premium. YouTube's advertising revenue grew about 9 percent to $11.2 billion, slightly below the roughly $11.4 billion analysts had expected, according to coverage of the results.

Why should DJs and producers care? Because for electronic music, YouTube is not just a video site. Full DJ sets, label channels, live streams and fan uploads of tracks all live there, and Content ID turns those uploads into income for rights holders. Subscription revenue generally pays more per play than ad-supported views, so a bigger paid base is good news for anyone whose music is heard on YouTube.

For the electronic scene, YouTube's growth also sits alongside other platforms chasing the same subscribers. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer all compete for paid listeners, and each has its own approach to DJ mixes and long form content. YouTube remains one of the few large services where a full two hour club set can live alongside the tracks played in it, which is why so many labels and promoters treat it as a home for recorded sets.

The practical step is to check that you are actually collecting. Make sure your distributor or label has your releases registered with Content ID, that your official artist channel is set up and linked to your topic channel, and that DJ mixes you upload are cleared or monetised in a way that does not block them. With YouTube now reporting more than 150 million subscribers across its paid tiers, uncollected YouTube income is a bigger leak than it was two years ago.