YouTube Premium is a paid subscription that removes ads and adds a handful of extra features. Here is what it actually includes and how to think about whether it is worth it.
What’s included
YouTube Premium removes ads across YouTube (with a small number of exceptions, such as some sponsored content baked directly into a video), enables background play and picture-in-picture on mobile, allows official offline downloads within the app, and bundles in YouTube Music Premium at no extra cost.
Roughly what it costs
Pricing varies by country and changes periodically, and individual, family and student plans are usually priced differently, with family plans covering multiple accounts in one household for less than paying individually. Because prices shift by region and over time, the only fully reliable source is YouTube’s own subscription page for your country and account.
Is it worth it?
For frequent viewers who watch on mobile, want offline downloads, or already pay for a separate music streaming service, Premium often replaces two subscriptions with one. For occasional viewers, the free ad-supported experience, including watching embedded videos on other websites exactly as this site’s tools generate, remains a fully legitimate way to watch without any subscription at all.
Does Premium affect embedded videos?
No. A video embedded on a website plays the same way regardless of whether the viewer has Premium; Premium’s ad-free benefit and offline downloads apply within YouTube’s own apps and site, not to how a video behaves once embedded elsewhere.
A cheaper starting point
If your interest in YouTube Premium is really about offline video for personal use, note that it is the only officially supported way to do that, compared with third-party downloader tools which breach YouTube’s Terms of Service, as explained in our guide on whether downloading YouTube videos is legal.