Amazon Prime: Pricing, benefits, and everything else you need to know

Amazon Prime: Pricing, benefits, and everything else you need to know

Amazon Prime is a membership program that offers perks like same-day shipping, free two-day shipping, exclusive discounts, and access to services like Amazon Prime Video and Prime Music. Whether you stream on-demand TV shows and movies, listen to playlists and podcasts, or shopsmart home products, Amazon’s Prime membership has you covered. Another advantage of the loyalty program isAmazon Prime Day, an annual shopping event exclusive to Prime members. Before we go over Amazon Prime benefits and perks, let’s talk about pricing.

Late orders, missing packages, or tricky returns are a few reasons it’s better to talk with Amazon’s team

Amazon Prime membership pricing tiers

Monthly and annual plans

You can start with a monthly or yearly plan for Amazon Prime. Both plans come with a 30-day free trial. The monthly plan starts at $15 and costs $139 per year.

Student pricing

Amazon also offers a Prime Student plan for $7.50 per month or $69 per year. You must be enrolled at a two or four-year college with a .edu email address. Alternatively, you could show your current student ID, transcript, or tuition bill as proof and become eligible for the Prime Student plan.

Amazon Prime Access pricing for qualifying families

Amazon Prime Accessis a discounted program for people who receive government assistance. The program costs $7.00 per month and is available for people who receive one of the benefits listed:

Whichever plan you choose, your Amazon Prime benefits remain the same. If you aren’t sure if you should become an Amazon Prime member, this guide gives you a rundown of the major features and benefits.

Prime members get fast and free shipping

The most well-known benefits of Prime are tied to its roots in speedy delivery. Free two-day delivery is still part of the package, but as a Prime member, you get free one-day and free same-day delivery on millions of items. Here’s a quick rundown of the shipping options.

Two-day shipping

Amazon offers Prime members free, two-day shipping in the US, but your membership can get you items faster. Amazon offers free, two-day shipping on millions of items in the contiguous US. If you live in Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico, you get free standard shipping, which Amazon ships in three to seven business days.

One-day shipping

Prime members get free, one-day shipping on eligible items. Same-day delivery is limited to orders over $25, but it’s an amazing perk, considering overnight delivery is at least $10 with most carriers. If you want to stock up on groceries, Amazon Fresh offers free grocery delivery in select cities.

If you don’t care if your package is delivered quickly, opt for no-rush shipping, which comes with a reward, typically a voucher for a Kindle book or another Amazon digital product. If you need the latest release the day it comes out, Amazon has that covered for Prime members with its release-date delivery service.

Amazon Prime subscriber shopping benefits

The most touted shopping benefit for Prime members is Prime Day. In this two-day event, Amazon offers exclusive deals to Prime members, particularly on its hardware like Fire tablets,Kindle e-readers, and Echo devices. It usually happens in mid-July every year. Besides Prime Day, members get early access to Lightning Deals.

Amazon has special services for Prime fashionistas. ItsTry Before You Buyservice has a curated selection of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothes that you could have sent to you (up to six items) in a resealable box. Try the clothes for a week, return what you don’t want, and pay for what you keep.

If you need tips for your fashion look, Amazon has apersonalized styling servicefor Prime members that costs $4.99 per use. First, take an online fashion quiz, and a stylist selects up to 16 items for you. Next, pick up to eight of those options to be sent to you. Finally, keep what you like and return the rest.

Digital Content for Amazon Prime members

Amazon Prime members get the following benefits with an active plan.

Prime Video and Prime Music

One of the best benefits of a Prime account is access to Prime Video, Amazon’s answer to movie streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Starz, and more. Amazon is no slouch in the world of streaming, but there’s one major downside. In January 2024, Amazon transitioned to ad-supported streaming. If you’re a Prime member, you can opt out of ads, but it will cost you an extra $2.99 a month.

Members also get ad-free access to a two-million-song library with Prime Music. Members willing to pay a monthly fee of $8.99 can accessAmazon Music Unlimited, which has a library of more than 90 million songs.

Prime Gaming

Prime Gaming is another surprise in Amazon’s stable of services for Prime members. Amazon offers members free in-game content, a free subscription to a Twitch channel of their choosing, and a selection of free titles every week.

Amazon Photos

Prime members can also access Amazon Photos, acloud storage solutionfor photos and videos. Regular members get 5GB of photo and video storage (you can pay monthly for more). Prime members get unlimited photo storage and 5GB for video.

If you want to upload more videos, upgrade to a paid plan. The pricing starts at $2 per month for 100GB. The 1TB storage tier costs $7 per month or $60 per year.

Prime Reading

For avid readers, Prime Reading has a library of e-books that arefree to read for Prime members. Once a month, members canselect one book for freefrom a curated list of early-access titles. They also get Amazon Prime benefits like Audible Premium Plus, with perks such as access to thousands of audiobooks and podcasts.

Amazon Kids+

If you have kids, your Amazon account has theAmazon Kids+service that bundles child-friendly content from all its services (books, shows, apps, and music streaming) into one package. It usually costs $7.99 per month or $79.99 a year, but Prime members pay $4.99 per month or $48 a year. Plus, the content is available across all Android and iOS-powered devices.

Amazon Prime Pharmacy

One lesser-known Prime benefit is Amazon Pharmacy, aprescription medication servicefor Prime members. Amazon Pharmacy accepts many insurance plans, and it offers pretty competitive pricing if you pay out of pocket.

Prime members can also sign up for Amazon Pharmacy RXPass. The service offers 50 of the most popular prescription medications for a flat rate of $5. For example, if you take three medications on the RXPass formulary, you’d pay a total of $5 for all three medications.

One Medical — 24/7 Virtual care and quick, in-person medical appointments

In late 2022, Amazon announced it would acquire One Medical, a concierge medical service with offices throughout the US. In 2023, Amazon unveiled its new One Medical program for Prime members.

One Medical offers virtual and in-person medical care for Prime members. One Medical offers 24/7 virtual care as well as in-person appointments. The service is available to Prime subscribers and costs $100 per person.

Amazon Prime membership worth the money?

To access Amazon Prime, you’ll pay a membership fee of $14.99 per month or $139 a year. You can also set upAmazon Householdto share the benefits with your loved ones.

If you use Amazon occasionally, perhaps to order an elusive hobby part or a last-minute gift, an Amazon Prime subscription is not worth it. However, it makes sense to become a Prime member if you regularly order stuff from Amazon, saving you the delivery cost, which can add up to a considerable amount.

If you’re a movie buff, Prime Video, which is included in Amazon Prime, costs less than the standard Netflix plan. With an Amazon Prime membership, you also get Amazon Music Prime, which offers ad-free access to podcasts, playlists, and more than 100 million songs. There’s also Prime Gaming with perks like free games and a free Twitch channel subscription.

If you’re still unsure whether an Amazon Prime membership is worth the money, try out its free 30-day trial before purchasing.

Amazon Prime has long since evolved from the days when it merely offered free two-day shipping and a burgeoning library of original shows. Prime now includes a music service, one of the most robust TV show and movie streaming services on the market, unique deals for its members — like free Twitch subscriptions and exclusive Whole Foods discounts — plus access to exclusive deals, especially on Amazon’s unofficial-official holidays, like the upcoming Prime Big Deal Days.

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