Amazon Prime provides subscribers with free 2 day shipping, Prime Instant video, and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. For the past 9 years, the annual subscription has stayed steady at $79 a year. For current members whose membership renews before April 17th, they will get another year at $79. Those that renew afterwards will be charged the increased price of $99 a year. Amazon Student membership will increase from $39/year to $49/year.
Amazon is currently promoting Amazon Prime on the front page of their website with a campaign to sign up before March 20th to get a year of membership locked in at the lower price of $79.
Amazon Prime offers free two-day shipping, the Kindle Owners Lending Library, which allows you to borrow 1 book a month, and Prime Instant Video to stream movies and TV shows. There is also rumor that Amazon is working on a streaming music deal to be included in Amazon Prime. If you’re not sure the benefits of Prime are for you,you can sign up for a 30-day free trial before March 20th and still lock in the lower price.
Current members of Amazon Prime may have received an email similar to the following to let them know about the coming price increase.
Dear [your name],
We are writing to provide you advance notice that the price of your Prime membership will be increasing. The annual rate will be $99 when your membership renews on [date of renewal].
Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
For more information about your Prime membership, visit our Prime Membership page.
Sincerely,
The Amazon Prime Team
$99 a year was the lower end of the range that Amazon announced in a quarterly earnings call where they stated Prime could rise up to $129/year.
Living in a smaller town without that many shopping venues, I certainly take advantage of Amazon Prime. I will have to consider if it is worth the $99 renewal though.