Getting Started Guide
Pandora Subscriptions and the APIs
Partners can access and use APIs at any of the 3 subscription tiers offered by Pandora (Free, Plus, or Premium).
Here is a brief description of functionality at each of the subscription levels:
| Free Subscription |
This tier is advertising-supported. Listeners can: |
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- Play stations by searching for station factories of songs, artists, tracks, etc. All the stations created, are added to their Collection.
- Listen to Thumbprint Radio which plays all of their thumbed-up tracks. Thumbprint Radio is not available in the listener's collection initially, but gets added to their collection after a certain period of use and thumb-feedback.
- Access the full Pandora database of tracks. Note that there are certain tracks that cannot be played due to licensing restrictions; this is true at all subscription tiers.
- Ability to provide feedback on desired and not-desired tracks using the Thumbs up/down feature. Licensing restrictions could limit this on some tracks.
- Skip tracks, however this Free tier has a limited amount of skips allowed per day; when limit is hit.
- Listeners are subject to Timeout periods*.
- View their information and followers via their Profile.
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| Plus Subscription |
This tier provides advertisement-free listening. Listeners can do everything listed in Free subscription above, with the following changes: |
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- Skip tracks with no limits on skipping.
And in addition, listeners can:
- Replay songs. Note that there are certain tracks that cannot be replayed due to licensing restrictions.
- Have access to higher-quality audio and a longer timeout period*.
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| Premium Subscription |
This tier provides advertisement-free listening. Listeners can do everything listed above in the Free and Plus subscriptions, with the following changes: |
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- Play any available track, album, playlist, or podcast on demand
- Shuffle tracks within Playlists and albums.
- Access to their full Collection for off-line listening (limited only by mobile device capability)
- Access to longer timeout periods*.
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* How Timeout periods work: The listener is prompted with a message "Are you still listening?" when they have not interacted with the currently playing Station for a certain period of time. Listeners at the Free tier will experience the shortest timeout periods and thus receive this message more often. Plus listeners will experience it less frequently and Premium listeners only occasionally.