Streaming credit
Pays for a subscription, usually applied to the account balance and drawn down monthly.
- Good for: giving someone a few months of a service they already use, or starting them on one.
- Watch for: the same app store billing issue as video streaming. If they subscribed through a phone, the app store bills them and the service's own card may not apply.
- Family plans: usually cost more per month, so a card covering three months of an individual plan covers fewer months of a family one.
Purchase credit
Buys individual tracks, albums and sometimes merchandise, which the recipient then owns.
- Good for: people who still buy music, collectors, anyone who wants files rather than access.
- Watch for: a shrinking market. Fewer services sell downloads than five years ago, and a card for one that closes is a problem.
Which to give
Ask one question: does this person subscribe to anything for music?
- Yes → streaming credit, for the service they actually use.
- No, and they buy albums → purchase credit.
- No, and they listen to free tiers → streaming credit is a real upgrade and often genuinely appreciated.
Hi-fi and audio hardware
Worth saying because people conflate them: a music service card does not buy headphones. If the gift is really about equipment, an electronics or general retail card is the right product.
Live music
Concert and ticketing credit is a separate category again — see experience gift cards. Ticketing cards usually cannot be used for the booking fees, which are a surprisingly large share of the total.
Choosing an amount
- Streaming: whole months of their plan. Three or six are the natural units.
- Purchases: the price of two or three albums. Below that it buys singles, which feels like change.
Region, again
Music services are as region-locked as everything else, and catalogues differ by country. A code for the wrong storefront will not redeem, and even where it does, the available catalogue may not be what you expected.