What is the difference between an account and a subscription?

Everybody who registers with Spotify gets a Spotify account. Your playlists and other information are stored with this account. You can access your account within Spotify on any computer or other device where you have the Spotify application installed. You can also access your account profile details here, on the Spotify website, by logging in.

At any time, you can add a subscription (Spotify Unlimited or Spotify Premium) to your Spotify account, this allows you to make use of the benefits of these services.

If you cancel the subscription, the subscription will expire at your next renewal date. However, you won’t lose access to your Spotify account, or playlists. You’ll still be able to log in to your account and enjoy the Spotify free service, until you decide to subscribe again.

More questions in Account and login:

• Problems logging into Spotify
• How do I get Spotify?
• I live in an overseas territory of the Spotify countries, but can't create an account, why?
• When will Spotify be available in my country?
• When I try to log in it says that my current country does not match my profile (error 408)
• ... and 9 more.