Tidal cuts $9 from the price of its hi-fi audio streaming plan

Tidal is condensing its plans in a bid to compete with fellow music streamers. The platform is removing its HiFi Plus and HiFI tiers to create one individual plan, aptly called Tidal. The new option will offer everything Plus users paid $20 monthly for but for $11— the same price as Spotify and Apple Music's one-person plans. It seems Tidal could no longer justify asking people to pay an extra $9 when its competitors offered similar perks for less (the company notably laid off 10 percent of its employees in December). 

The new solo tier will include Dolby Atmos, HiRes FLAC and lossless audio for over 100 million songs. Apple Music also offers lossless audio, but this puts Tidal ahead of Spotify, which has yet to roll it out. There is a small catch for current HiFi Plus subscribers: Tidal's DJ integration feature is becoming a DJ Extension — which will cost subscribers another $10. Anyone who has used DJ integration in the last 90 days will automatically have the extension added to their new plan when the tier overhaul takes effect on April 10. Notably, Tidal's family plan will also condense into just one option, a $17 offer rather than the HiFi Plus' $30 a month price tag. 

While the changes are overall a good deal for Tidal subscribers, the music streamer is getting rid of multiple options — including its free tier. As of March 4, Tidal also removed its discount for newly subscribing military personnel and first responders. Existing free tier subscribers will have to pay full price starting April 10, while military personnel and first responders who already use Tidal will have to make the switch starting June 10. Students who use Tidal will keep their $5 monthly rate.