Rhapsody contains approximately 12 million songs within its steaming music database. This includes over 7,000 artists and 150,000 albums. Spotify boasts more than 13 million songs in its database. Before its U.S. launch, Spotify went to great lengths to secure the catalogs of the four major labels along with thousands of independents. Its catalog also continues to grow as the company signs more deals.
Spotify offers 20 free hours of listening on its service for anyone who creates a free account. The service also allows users to purchase and download any track they listen to for a small fee. Spotify also integrates with a users Facebook account. This allows you to share songs you enjoy on Spotify with your Facebook friends and vice versa. Rhapsody allows users to create customized playlists of any song within their catalog. They can also listen to hundreds of Rhapsody radio stations. Rhapsody users can stream their music wirelessly through certain home stereos, including the Sonos Music System.
Rhapsody estimates it has 800,000 paying subscribers. Rhapsody does not offer any free accounts and it only has one payment plan. All of these subscribers are based in the U.S. however because the service has yet to expand overseas. Spotify reports that it has more than 10 million free users in Europe and more than 1 million free accounts in the U.S. It also estimates that it has more than 1 million paying subscribers worldwide.
Rhapsody offers two types pricing plans for its service. Rhapsody Premiere costs $9.99 per month and gives users unlimited access to the company's music catalog. The plan includes the ability to stream this music to one mobile device. Rhapsody also offers a Premiere Plus account for $14.99 per month with all of the same benefits but enables users to stream music to three mobile devices. Spotify offers the Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium plans for $4.99 and $9.99 respectively. Spotify Unlimited gives 24/7 access to the online catalog without advert interruptions. Spotify Premium offers these benefits but also allows users to stream music to unlimited mobile devices and sync music playlists for offline computer use.