Spotify & Gift Cards: 9 Common Questions (Answered)

Gift cards are a great option as a present for someone special.  Usually, the idea of a gift card is pretty straightforward; it’s like money you can only spend at a specific place.

Spotify gift cards might be a little confusing at first if you don’t know how they work.

Spotify is a subscription service, so how do gift cards work?

Keep reading, because, in this article, we intend to answer all your Spotify gift card questions today!

What Can You Use Spotify Gift Cards For?

Spotify gift cards can be used to grant yourself subscription time for Spotify Premium.

If you don’t have a Spotify Premium account, redeeming the card will upgrade your account to Premium status.

If you do have a Premium account, redeeming the card will add time to your paid subscription.

The cards come in 1, 3, 6, and 12-month values; this is how much time of Spotify Premium you’ll get access to. 

This is all the gift cards do; they have no redeemable monetary value once purchased, and specifically exist to add time to a Premium account, nothing more and nothing less.

Are There Any Limitations with Spotify Gift Cards?

You can only use Spotify gift cards to redeem for Spotify Premium subscription time, and you can’t get a refund.

They also can’t be redeemed for cash or used like cash in any way other than buying a Premium subscription, and have no cash value except as required by law.

You can’t use a Spotify gift card in combination with any kind of deal or discount, either.

For instance, you might think if you have a 3-month card and there’s a 50% off deal, you could get 6 months out of the same card while the deal’s going.

Sadly, it doesn’t work that way, and in that hypothetical example, you’d still only get 3 months out of the gift card.

Finally, you can only redeem a Spotify gift card in the same country it was purchased in.

As you can see, various terms and conditions apply. Check the last link under “sources” below for the full legalese if you’re interested.

When Do Spotify Gift Cards Expire?

Spotify gift cards have no expiration date.

While various limitations apply, an expiration date is simply not one of them.

You could buy a gift card today and use it years from now, as long as Spotify Premium still exists then.

Does it Matter if it’s a $10$, $30, $50 Gift Card, or More?

First of all, there’s no such thing as a $10 Spotify gift card, or a $30 one, and so on.

There might be gift cards that cost that amount of money to buy, but it’s important to remember that subscription service cards don’t work like other gift cards.

For example, there’s a 1-month gift card that costs $10 to purchase, but it’s not a $10 gift card, it’s a 1-month gift card.

The difference is that a $10 gift card would allow you to redeem it for $10 worth of goods or services from the retailer that issued it.

However, a 1-month Spotify Premium gift card simply grants you 1 month of Spotify premium; nothing more, nothing less.

Can You Stack Multiple Gift Cards?

Each Spotify gift card that you redeem adds that amount of time to your paid subscription.

When you redeem a 3-month Spotify gift card, that means it’ll be another 3 months before Spotify charges you actual money.

If you redeem a 3-month gift card and then redeem a 1-month gift card after that, you’ll have 4 months of pre-paid subscription time on your account.

You can “stack” up to 18 months of gift cards and the subscription time granted by each will be added to your account.

Do Spotify Gift Cards Work Internationally?

Well, that depends on what you mean by “internationally.”

If you mean, “can they be used in more than one country?” then the answer is “yes.”

But if you mean, “can you redeem the gift card in a country other than the one in which it was purchased?” then the answer is “no.”

One of the limitations imposed by Spotify’s Terms and Conditions on their gift cards is that they may only be used in the country in which they were purchased.

Now, they’re available for purchase in many countries, so Spotify gift cards can be purchased and redeemed all over the world.

But you cannot, for example, buy a gift card in the U.S. and send it to your European friend; they will not be able to redeem it.

However, if you could purchase a card from a digital shop based in your friend’s home country, it should work; as long as the card is issued in the same country they live in.

Do they Ever Go on Sale?

As far as we can tell, Spotify gift cards don’t go on sale.

Spotify does occasionally offer promotional deals and discounts on Spotify Premium, but these apply to directly purchasing a subscription, not a gift card.

Furthermore, Spotify does not directly sell gift cards, they issue them for third-party vendors to purchase in bulk and re-sell.

In theory, one of these third-party stores could run a sale on Spotify gift cards, but they probably won’t, because it wouldn’t make very much sense.

Spotify gift cards have a specific MSRP price listed directly on the card, and selling them for less than this price could mean selling them at cost.

This wouldn’t make very much sense for your average profit-motivated store to do unless they were going out of business and running a clearance to make back whatever they could.

So while not technically impossible, it’s extremely unlikely you’re ever going to see Spotify gift cards on sale.

Can You Buy Spotify Premium with a Spotify Gift Card?

In fact, that’s pretty much all you can do with them. It’s the whole point of the card!

Spotify gift cards are redeemable for 1, 3, 6, or 12 months of Spotify Premium.

You cannot buy anything else with them, you cannot get a refund for them, and you cannot redeem them for cash or for anything else in any way.

The entire purpose of Spotify gift cards is to add time to your Premium subscription, and that is all they do.

What Could Be the Reason a Spotify Gift Card Doesn’t Work?

There are a few possible reasons you could be having trouble redeeming your Spotify gift card.

The most common reason is that you simply entered the code incorrectly.

This is frustratingly easy to do, especially since all the 0’s (zeroes) look like O’s and the 1’s (ones) look like I’s.

Take a close look and be absolutely sure you’ve entered the code correctly.

Note that you will get 4 attempts to enter the code correctly; if you fail all 4 attempts, you will have to wait 24 hours before you can try again.

Also, note that you should be careful to use gentle pressure when scratching away that flaky silver film to reveal the code.

If you’re too forceful, it’s possible to scrape away the numbers underneath, potentially making the code impossible to see in full, and, thus, impossible to enter correctly!

If you’re absolutely positive you’ve entered the correct code, there is one other possibility: it’s already been redeemed.

Now, if you scratched the silver film off yourself and nobody else saw the number, that shouldn’t be possible; the codes are never repeated, after all.

The problem is that some people will enter random codes, or use software to try and guess valid gift card code numbers, in order to “steal” a gift card redemption online.

While rare, sometimes this does happen, and you could be unlucky enough to have grabbed a card with a code someone else already redeemed through luck or brute forcing it.

In this case, or if for any other reason, you can’t seem to redeem your gift card, you should contact Spotify support.

Sources