How Much Does Amazon Prime Cost?

Shopping fans that want to shop on Amazon Prime Day, will need to get an Amazon Prime membership. Prime gives you a lot of perks, but it also comes at a cost per subscription.

This article will get into what you get when you subscribe to Prime, to help you decide whether this is something you might need or not.

How much does an Amazon Prime Membership cost?

The cost of Amazon Prime membership is $139 per year, but other membership tiers cost anywhere between $8.99 per month and $14.99 per month or $108 to $180 per year, depending on what you’re getting. This might seem like a very steep price for the free 2-day shipping perk advertised as the main benefit of the membership. But the benefits might outweigh the costs if you’re an avid online shopper, you’re a video streamer, like music, or are a bookworm.

Although you can try the Amazon Prime membership for free for 30 days, its cost will ultimately depend on the membership plan you’re getting:

Prime Video membership: This membership tier costs $8.99 per month. This membership is restrictive in that you will only get Amazon’s unlimited TV show and movie streaming perks. The cost per year will be $108 for this membership tier.
Prime Student membership: The Prime Student is a discounted membership that comes at a fee of $69 per year, or $7.49 per month, although students with a valid school email address will also get a free six-month trial on this subscription.
Prime monthly membership: The standard monthly membership costs $14.99 per month. This gives you the full benefits of the Prime membership but spreads out the payments over each month instead of paying a one-time membership fee. This payment method will mean a yearly cost of about $180. People who get Prime Access through qualifying government assistance will get the same benefits but for a lower cost of just $6.99 per month.
Prime annual membership: This is the standard Prime membership paid in full and costs $139 per year. This means that if you pay the annual fee in a lump sum, you will get the full membership but spend a lot less on it.

Keep in mind that after signing up, Amazon will keep your credit card information on file. At the end of the trial period, they will charge you directly if you fail to log into your account and cancel the membership.

What is Amazon Prime?

Amazon Prime is the subscription service offered by Amazon, the biggest online retailer in the world. This enables its members to have full access to entertainment services, exclusive shopping, discounts, and a lot more.

Benefits of Amazon Prime

The key benefit of the Amazon Prime membership is getting free two-day shipping on millions of items that are eligible in the program. There are some bigger cities where you can even get free same-day delivery as long as the orders are eligible. In comparison, your average Amazon order will take five to eight business days to arrive at your location, even though non-Prime users still get free standard shipping on qualifying orders of more than $25.

You might also like our articles about the cost of Walmart Plus, Costco membership, or Alexa.

Although Amazon Prime started out as a simple free shipping addon, it has extended over time and now includes benefits like:

Whole Foods deals

Amazon Prime members can get a 10% discount at Whole Foods Market, both online and in stores, on all eligible sale items.

Unlimited music streaming

Amazon Prime Music enables you to listen, ad-free, to over 2 million songs. You can also browse the Prime Playlists. As a Prime member, you can also get a discounted subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited. This offers access to over 100 million songs.

Unlimited reading

If you like reading, then this perk will do wonders for you. You can choose between thousands of magazines, comics, and books, and you can read them all for free. You can use this service on any Android or iOS device that has the Kindle App, as well as Fire tablets and Kindles.

Unlimited movie and TV streaming

Using the Prime Video perk, you can stream thousands of movies and TV shows for free. You will also be able to subscribe to popular channels like Showtime and HBO, although these come at an additional cost.

Prime Day and Prime Early Access

Getting the Prime membership will get you early access to the annual Prime Day shopping deals. This isn’t all. Over the rest of the year, you will still get access to Lighting Deals that give you a 30-minute head start over members who don’t have a Prime membership.

Free games

Prime Gaming will give you access to a monthly Twitch channel subscription, as well as free in-game content and whole games.

Free unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos

Having a Prime membership will also mean you get unlimited photo storage of full-resolution photos, as well as 5 GB storage for videos. You can back up your photos in the Amazon Photo app, which enables you to have access to everything you uploaded both from your mobile device and your computer.

Amazon Family

You can use the Amazon Family perk to get family-oriented deals, coupons, and offers, including a 15% baby registry completion discount, and 20% off diapers per month with the Subscribe and Save option.

Amazon Elements

With Amazon Prime, you get access to Amazon’s consumer-first line of items like baby wipes and other everyday products.

Using Amazon Household to Share a Prime Membership

You can get the Amazon Household package if you have multiple people in the household who want to use Amazon Prime. Amazon Household enables you to share benefits with your kids and manage their profiles so that you restrict them from accessing content you don’t deem necessary for them. You can also share content inside the Family Library with your kids if you enjoy streaming.

You can not only share it with your kids, but your wife, friend, or other adult as well. However, to make sure you are able to share the benefit payment, you will want to link your individual accounts through Amazon Household.

Here’s what you should know before you add the family members to your Amazon Household account:

You can add a maximum of four children to the Amazon Household account, although they won’t be able to shop. What they can do, is share games, apps, and eBooks between them and with you.
You can have up to four teens ages between 13 and 17 years old with their own individual Amazon logins who stream content or shop. This includes services like Twitch Prime, Amazon Music, or Prime Video.
A maximum of two adults who have their own Amazon accounts can join your Amazon Household.

Is Amazon Prime worth it?

Whether Amazon Prime is for you or not will depend on your needs and how you choose to use the membership. Let’s go over some of the most important Prime benefits again. These are the streaming entertainment and free delivery services.

When it comes to shipping, if you notice that you spend more than $139 in shipping fees alone over a year, then you will surely benefit from the Amazon Prime program.
When it comes to streaming entertainment, Amazon Prime includes Prime Video and is cheaper than both the standard Netflix and the commercial-free Hulu plans when you get the annual membership that is worth $139 per year. You will also get access to Amazon Music Prime streaming service in a pretty robust way through Prime. As long as the music and video selection is wide enough for you, you might consider canceling your subscription to other services you’re using, and put that money towards Amazon Prime.

Not having to go to a store to get essential items or having your items shipped in just a few days and not weeks are other considerations you should consider when weighing the need for Amazon Prime.

All of the benefits can also be shared with another household member, which is a huge plus as well. Splitting the whole cost with a roommate, for example, will cut it down to below $70 per year, which is a great deal for what you’re getting. As long as you’re a regular shopper, paying $6 per month for free two-day shipping is a pretty amazing deal.

You don’t have to figure out whether Amazon Prime membership is worth the fee before you try it and see what it’s all about. So sign up for a free trial first and this will give you all the information you need on the benefits of Amazon Prime.