If you use a browser window instead of the Zune software, you can buy albums and tracks at for the equivalent cash price, with no points required. (The cost of individual tracks is nearly identical.) In the Zune software, the Marketplace still uses Microsoft Points instead of currency, which means you have to buy a package of points and have sufficient point balancer in your account before before you can buy anything. That dubious distinction goes to Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, where album prices were actually higher than those at iTunes for my shopping list. One big surprise in my survey is that iTunes is no longer the most expensive digital music service on a per-album basis. You can save at least 30% by using the quirky (but lovable) eMusic service, which recently expanded its selection and changed its business model dramatically and controversially. On the sales side, neither service even tries to compete with Apple, offering prices that are typically within a few pennies of the iTunes price.īased on the results of my survey, you can typically save at least 10% over the iTunes price for an album by buying from Amazon MP3 (prices at 7digital are similar). Rhapsody and Napster (the latter owned by Best Buy) are based primarily on a subscription model, which gives you the right to listen to any track in the collection on a PC and (with the right plan) to download copies for offline listening on an Android device or an iPhone. These conclusions aren't relevant if you live outside the U.S.)Īmazon MP3 and eMusic are the only two pure retailers in the bunch, with no subscription options and lots of deals available. This roundup includes only U.S.-based services and is based on prices in the U.S. (A note of apology upfront to my international readers. I also gathered data from 7digital, but its selection had enough holes in it that I couldn't include it in my overall results. Besides iTunes, I looked at five services in depth: Amazon MP3, Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, Napster, and eMusic.
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