As of May 11th, Amazon plans on raising the price of their popular Amazon Prime service from $99 to $119 a year, marking one of the first price increases since 2014. Everything else remains the same as service will continue as normal, with all of the perks that come with it.
Here is a list of some of the features you get with subscribing to Prime:
- Free shipping: Free two or even one day shipping on qualified products within the U.S. to eligible zip codes. Currently, there are millions of products that qualify for Prime delivery, and this number seems to grow daily.
- Prime Video: One of the biggest perks to having Prime, is the option of streaming some of your favorite movies and TV shows. Prime Video is a lot like Netflix and Hulu (which cost similar just by themselves without any added perks like Prime has to offer), and supports a number of devices like phones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles and more.
- Prime Music: Also one of the bigger perks. Just like Pandora and some of the other major music streaming services, you have access to unlimited streaming of ad-free music, and the quality can be amaz…ing if you have good speakers. There are over one million songs to pick from, and a vast selection of playlists.
- Audible: Unlimited access to a large catalog of audiobooks for the whole family, including kid-friendly options.
- Other streaming: You also get access to Twitch Prime, Amazon Channels (although this is an additional charge), and more.
- Prime Day: An event that happens each year where Amazon runs rotating specials for Prime members, sometimes resulting in some amazing prices and opportunities that challenge your typical Black Friday specials.
- and much more.
Amazon is also working hard on original content, just like Netflix, bringing unique movies and TV shows to their selection. All of this for just $119/year still makes it quite the buy if you consider how much it costs to go to the movies, or to subscribe to cable TV services throughout the year. Even with competitors like Walmart trying to copy Amazon’s shipping program, none of them offer so many features to go with it. So although it is always unfortunate to discover a price hike for something to subscribe into, at least you are still getting one of heck of a bang for your buck.