YouTube Premium Lite subscription now offers background playback and video downloads for offline viewing. Learn about the new features and how they compare to full YouTube Premium.
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YouTube has expanded the capabilities of its Premium Lite subscription, adding features that were previously exclusive to the more expensive tier. Now Premium Lite users can enable background playback and download most videos for offline viewing without ads.
Until recently, these capabilities remained exclusive to the full YouTube Premium subscription. In the U.S., Premium Lite costs $7.99 per month, while standard Premium runs $13.99. According to YouTube, the new features are starting to roll out to subscribers now, though the full deployment may take several weeks.
Background playback allows users to continue listening to videos when minimizing the app or locking the screen, which is particularly useful for podcasts, interviews, and long videos. The download feature, meanwhile, offers the chance to save videos to a device and watch them without an internet connection.
Premium Lite remains a compromise option, however. Ads are disabled for most non-music content, but ad inserts persist in Shorts. Additionally, the subscription does not extend to the YouTube Music app—music videos and tracks still include ads and are fully accessible only with full Premium.
The full YouTube Premium continues to offer the maximum set of features: no ads on all videos, including music, plus additional playback controls like queue management, extended scrubbing, and viewing sync across devices.
This update makes Premium Lite more appealing for users who prioritize background listening and offline viewing but don't need YouTube Music or the extra features of the full tier. For YouTube, it's a way to retain audience and reduce subscriber churn without lowering the price of its flagship subscription.