Spotify has introduced a new “managed accounts” feature aimed at younger listeners. Initially piloted last year and launching in seven new markets, including the US, today, it allows parents and guardians with a Spotify Premium Family plan to allocate their children a dedicated profile with their own personalized recommendations and custom playlists.
The idea is that the adults can filter out explicit content, limit the playback of certain artists and hide video playback features, including Canvas, should they want to. Users on this profile can’t use interactivity features like Messages either.
Perhaps most importantly of all for some, a managed account also ensures that your personal Wrapped results at the end of the year aren’t dominated by whatever TikTok-viral songs the kids have been obsessively playing on repeat for months — and they won’t mess with your Discover Weekly algorithm either. Spotify’s ‘Exclude from your Taste Profile’ feature already offers a way of keeping the nonsense your kids might be listening to away from your own recommended content, but this feels like a cleaner option for families.
Standard Spotify Premium features like daylist and the aforementioned Discover Weekly remain available to someone using a managed account, making it a better option for kids becoming interested in music (they may even have gotten hooked on a band you’ve been listening to in the car) than the Spotify Kids app, which is very much designed for the ‘Baby Shark’ devotees. It’s probably helpful to think of a managed account as a bridge between that and an unrestricted Premium account where all the music in the world is at your fingertips.
To set up a managed account, the plan owner has to go into their account settings within the Spotify app and select “Add a Member,” followed by selecting “Add a listener aged under 13.” The app will provide further instructions from there. As a reminder, a Spotify Premium Family plan is required to set up a managed account. This currently costs $20 per month.
