Rumor has it that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is hoping to launch two new streaming music subscription services in September, says Recode. One of the services will cost about $10 and will offer similar streaming music services to Spotify and Apple Music, which each offer an unlimited, ad-free experience with music that can be listened to online as well as off. The second service will be in the $5 a month price range and will only work on Amazon’s Echo devices and not on smartphones.

The $10 a month stand-alone streaming music service Amazon is planning will compete directly with the two top streaming music services: Spotify which has approximately 30 million paying subscribers in 60 countries and Apple Music which has 13 million subscribers in 100 countries, according to Investopedia.

Currently, Pandora is the only music subscription service in the $5 a month price range, but for now, it only offers internet radio, not a true streaming music service. Pandora does, however, have streaming music and tiered subscription plans in the works. They are expected to launch by year end, according to Variety. Rdio, acquired and shut down by Pandora last year, was about $4 a month and featured ad-free stations and up to 25 mobile downloads per user.

Other popular streaming music services include Tidal, Google and YouTube, but do not seem to have a strong enough foothold to be a significant threat to Spotify and Apple Music, or to Amazon’s planned services.

What’s interesting about this news is that Amazon already has an Amazon Music service which is free to Amazon Prime subscribers. The current service offers unlimited, ad-free, on-demand streaming with curated playlists and personalized stations. The catalog includes more than a million Prime songs, a library that each Prime subscriber can create for themselves, and thousands of curated Prime playlists by artist, genre, moods, activities and more.

The new streaming music services will be different in two ways. First, they will be available as stand-alone services, so they aren’t tied to Amazon Prime memberships. Second, because the Echo-based service is tied to hardware, that music will not be available for offline listening or to listen to on smartphones, which seems counter to what everyone else is doing.

According to Recode, the initial plan is for Amazon to launch the new services in September, but that is contingent upon Amazon securing agreements with major music labels.

Insider Take:

Far be it for Jeff Bezos or Amazon to remain idle for any length of time or to be satisfied with the company’s current product. We presume the current product does not have a large enough audience, or Amazon is hoping to add to its retail empire by adding stand-alone streaming music subscription products, including one that is tied to hardware that will have to be replaced and upgraded periodically.

While it doesn’t seem that the world needs another streaming music service, Amazon is both smart and innovative. It is smart to add new stand-alone subscription products as another source of recurring revenue, and also to provide a more affordable option for those who are fans of Echo and Alexa. The latter has the potential for increasing hardware sales. This second, cheaper subscription could be a bust because it isn’t portable, but if so, Amazon doesn’t have much to lose. It can test the idea and scrap it if it doesn’t work.

We think the main drivers here are to create something for Echo that will make it more attractive to potential buyers. In addition, Amazon would prefer to keep its customers within the Amazon eco-system by offering streaming music services that rival its competitors, rather than have their Prime members go elsewhere – Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, etc. – for their music.