“How much would you pay for Amazon Prime?” is akin to asking “How much would you pay to continue using Google?” It’s been so deeply ingrained in our daily lives that it’s become almost unavoidable. We’ve grown accustomed to near-instant gratification, and many of us find it difficult to value that convenience.
An Amazon Prime subscription costs $12.99 a month on a month-to-month basis, while a Prime Student membership costs $6.49 per month. Additional savings for EBT and Medicaid cardholders reduce the monthly cost to $5.99. Over the course of a year, paying month to month will cost you roughly $37 more than paying annually.
Is $119 for Amazon Prime worth it?
Yes, in a word. According to JPMorgan, your Amazon Prime subscription is actually worth $785 per year.
Prime members get a lot of goodies for the $119 yearly membership or $13 monthly charge (which definitely range in usefulness). Free one-day, same-day, and two-hour delivery on qualifying items (of which there are many), exclusive rewards and discounts, access to Prime Video, Prime Music, online photo storage, music, and books, and over 20 other advantages are just a few of them.
You may get Prime Day savings on everything from new TVs to Instant Pots to Amazon Echo gadgets if you’re a Prime member. For those who are unfamiliar with Amazon Prime Day, it is the retailer’s annual sitewide savings promotion for Prime members alone. This year’s event took place on June 21 and 22.
Although you may not use all of the features included in your subscription, the convenience alone is worth the price.
If you’re a student with access to a university email, you can save 50% on Amazon Prime Student’s annual or monthly fees. You can also utilize Amazon Household to share your Amazon Prime membership and most benefits with family members, allowing you to stretch your dollar even farther. Even if none of this pertains to you, it’s still a good investment in general.
Amazon Prime Monthly Subscription
In the end, most of us will gladly pay a little more for the amenities we’ve grown accustomed to. However, if you’d like to get a breakdown of how you’re saving and possibly reconsider the cost, see our analysis below. If you’re on the fence about joining Amazon Prime, you can try it out for free for 30 days before determining whether it’s worth it.
This is a breakdown of why Amazon Prime continues to be an important worth, even at $119 per 12 months:
Delivery prices
Free one-day delivery on over 10 million items with no minimum purchase is included in the annual or monthly pricing. If your order is over $25 without Prime, you’ll get free standard shipping, but no one-day delivery.
One-day shipping is usually around $10 (plus or minus a few dollars). If you place 11 orders of less than $25 on Amazon as a Prime member over the course of a year (for example, if you only require paper towels), the membership will pay for itself.
And, while expedited delivery is a once-in-a-lifetime expense for most of us, it’s a costly one. For orders above $35, Prime offers Same-Day delivery on millions of items in 47 major metropolitan areas.
Amazon Prime subscribers spend an average of $1,400 a year on the platform. Non-Prime customers spend slightly less ($600), but they may be footing the bill elsewhere, such as in the cost of petrol to purchase in-store, the greater cost of things from big-box shops, and shipping from other stores.
Video streaming companies
The amount of money Amazon planned to invest into its digital content, which is one of the biggest privileges of the Prime membership, was one of the assumed reasons for the increase in annual costs in 2018.
You can enjoy a wide library of movies and TV series for free, including Amazon Originals, and rent the latest releases for a cheap fee with Prime Video. Prime users may also subscribe to over 100 channels, including HBO, Showtime, and CBS All Access (and only pay for the channels they want, which is a terrific way to save money without sacrificing convenience).
Plus, when streaming competition heats up, it’ll almost certainly only become better.
Limitless photograph storage and sharing, in addition to 5 GB for movies and information
Amazon Images allows you to save and share an infinite number of full-resolution photos on your PC, mobile device, or tablet, as well as share an unlimited amount of photo storage with up to five others. If you’re paying a few dollars a month to upgrade your iCloud storage solely to make place for your phone’s images, you can save money and get more out of your membership.
You’ll also get 5 GB of storage space for videos and data. Amazon Images is also pre-installed on Amazon devices, allowing you to access your photos from your Fire TV and Echo Show.
Sharing Prime advantages throughout a whole family at no further price
Amazon Household is one of the simplest ways to see a return on your Prime membership investment if you’re using it as a family. A ‘Household’ can include two adults, up to four teens, and up to four children, allowing everyone in the family to take use of Prime perks (free shipping, Prime Video, Amazon Photos, and sharing content like ebooks, audiobooks, games, and apps) without paying extra. If you or your family utilize any of the features even seldom, this alone makes Prime a decent price.
Adults can also approve orders before they’re placed (for teens) and put parental restrictions on digital content by linking accounts (for kids).
Prime unique rewards and reductions, like Prime Day, offers, Lightning Offers, and a rewards bank card that provides you 5% money again
Your Prime membership also entitles you to a slew of special bargains, which serve as the proverbial icing on the cake.
The most significant benefit is access to Amazon’s Prime Day sales, which took place earlier this year. Don’t worry if you missed it; you’ll also have access to the following:
Prime members receive an extra 30 minutes to shop lightning bargains (which generally last only a few hours) before they go live. While browsing the page, check for the “Prime Early Access” label.
If you can wait a few extra days for your order to arrive, you can either earn rewards on future purchases or receive savings right away if you choose no-rush delivery at checkout. Once your free No-Rush order delivers, your rewards will be automatically credited to your account, and they will also be applied to qualified orders.
No annual charge and no international transaction fees on a rewards credit card: You’ll get 5% back at Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market, 2% back at restaurants, petrol stations, and drugstores, and 1% back on everything else. You may use your points to get cash back, gift cards, and travel on Amazon.
The choice to strive garments on at dwelling earlier than really shopping for them
Prime Wardrobe allows you to try on and buy new styles from the comfort of your own home. Choose three or more things from their various lines and try them on at home before deciding what to keep and how much to pay. You have seven days to decide, and once you’ve made your decision, you can simply check out online. Then, using the resealable box and prepaid shipping label, return your undesired things for free.
If you don’t shop online frequently, your membership may not save you much money. However, if you’ve ever been burned by a limited return window and a hectic schedule, the try-before-you-buy function is a fantastic way to save money in the long run.
Entry to books, magazines, and comics
As a perk of membership, Prime members get access to Prime Reading, which allows them to select up to 10 titles at a time from over 3,000 possibilities, and Amazon First Reads provides you access to one free Kindle book per month selected by Amazon book editors.
If you have children and find yourself spending a lot of money on children’s books, movies, TV episodes, or educational apps and games, Prime members may subscribe to Amazon Kids+ for $2.99 per month for a single child or $6.99 per month for a family of four children. Before you commit, try it out for free.
Parents can customize each child’s experience by setting restrictions such as time limits and content filters. It works with Fire Tablets (books, movies, and apps), Echo (audio), Kindle eReaders (books), and Android phones and tablets (books, videos).
Free Prime Music streaming and discounted Amazon Music Limitless
Amazon Music is a Prime advantage that gives you access to a growing library of 2 million songs, playlists, and radio stations that you can listen to ad-free and on demand. Amazon Music Unlimited ($7.99 a month) provides a larger library of tens of millions of songs and podcasts that you can download for offline listening on any device. Amazon Music Unlimited may be a better price than popular options like Spotify Premium ($9.99 per month) depending on your own preferences. You can get a free trial here to see which one is best for you in the long run.
Save 50% on Prime with entry to a college.edu e-mail or as a qualifying buyer with an EBT or Medicaid card
If you have a.edu email address and haven’t yet joined Prime, you may get a free six-month trial of Prime Student and then pay half the price of other Prime members ($6.49 per month or $59 per year) when the trial finishes for four years or until your graduation date, whichever comes first.
Customers who have an EBT or Medicaid card are eligible for a discount on Prime ($5.99 per month).
Free customary transport and returns on Shopbop, East Dane, and Woot!
Your delivery advantages are crucial, and they go beyond Amazon.com. Signing into your Amazon account while shopping at Shopbop, East Dane, and the Woot! flash deals will get you free standard shipping.
Twitch Prime stay video streaming and viewing
Amazon Prime members get access to heaps of free, exclusive content for their favorite PC, console, and mobile games with Prime Gaming. Prime members get a free Twitch channel subscription (normally $4.99 per month) and a monthly collection of PC games that they may keep indefinitely.
Time
The most important (and valuable) item you’ll save with Prime is time. Prime members may have millions of products delivered the same day in 47 metropolitan cities.
If you’re used to standing in line for new video game releases, you can save even more money with free release-date delivery on new video games, books, music, and movies if you can wait until 7 p.m. on the day of delivery.
In some areas, Amazon Key in-home delivery is available, so you don’t even have to be home to receive your products. It’s a safe and convenient in-home delivery service for millions of qualified items. The Amazon Key Home Kit ($219.99) makes it possible, and it can also be used to schedule home access for visitors, friends, and family. Packages can also be delivered to an eligible shopper’s garage or automobile while it is parked in a publicly accessible place.
