Spotify has returned to its invite-only system in the UK in a bid to manage its costs, just days after launching its mobile service.

It’s limiting the number of members to the music streaming service, as it did when it launched in October 2008.

In a post on the Spotify blog, spokesman Andres Sehr said new users would be unable to access the service unless they had been sent an invite code.

“Due to the huge demand in the UK over the last few days since we launched our mobile service, we’re going to have to temporarily reinstate our invite system in the UK,” he said.

The ad-funded music service pays labels on a per-stream basis and any sharp increase in traffic would result in a significant rises in its payments.  

A Spotify source told new media age, “We’re doing it because we have to monitor our costs.”

Sehr said, “We’re invite-only in all our other launch countries but we hope to be able to remove the need for an invite [in the UK] again very soon.”

Current members will still be able to access the service and use up their existing invites. It’s not known if new invite codes are to be distributed.