Amazon changed the retail shopping experience with the introduction of Prime, best-known for offering fast, free delivery—and that alone makes a membership worth it for many Prime members. Yet the benefits go way beyond quick delivery.
Read on to learn more about the cost of a Prime membership—and some of the key benefits that come along with it to make your membership meet your needs and wants every day.
Let’s start with the cost. A Prime membership is $14.99 per month, or $139 per year if you pay annually—but Amazon also offers several discounted membership options with the same valuable benefits including fast, free delivery on millions of items, exclusive perks, and savings for eligible members.
Prime Access, for instance, is just $6.99 per month for qualifying government assistance recipients, including SNAP EBT and Medicaid.
Prime Student—another discounted membership—is $7.49 per month or $69 per year for members enrolled in two or four-year colleges that includes additional exclusive perks specifically for students.
Amazon offers a 30-day trial for Prime and Prime Access, so you can take advantage of Prime’s benefits without paying a membership fee for 30 days to see if a membership is right for you.
5 key benefits of a Prime membership
With a Prime membership, you get what you pay for—and then some. Below are a handful of the benefits you’ll enjoy as a Prime member.
Amazon Prime makes your life more convenient, simple, and fun, every single day.
Amazon changed the retail shopping experience with the introduction of Prime, best-known for offering fast, free delivery—and that alone makes a membership worth it for many Prime members. Yet the benefits go way beyond quick delivery.
Read on to learn more about the cost of a Prime membership—and some of the key benefits that come along with it to make your membership meet your needs and wants every day.
Let’s start with the cost. A Prime membership is $14.99 per month, or $139 per year if you pay annually—but Amazon also offers several discounted membership options with the same valuable benefits including fast, free delivery on millions of items, exclusive perks, and savings for eligible members.
Prime Access, for instance, is just $6.99 per month for qualifying government assistance recipients, including SNAP EBT and Medicaid.
Prime Student—another discounted membership—is $7.49 per month or $69 per year for members enrolled in two or four-year colleges that includes additional exclusive perks specifically for students.
Amazon offers a 30-day trial for Prime and Prime Access, so you can take advantage of Prime’s benefits without paying a membership fee for 30 days to see if a membership is right for you.
5 key benefits of a Prime membership
With a Prime membership, you get what you pay for—and then some. Below are a handful of the benefits you’ll enjoy as a Prime member.
1.
Watch, read, listen, and play all with Prime
Prime members can enjoy a variety of digital entertainment benefits at no additional cost to their membership.
Prime Videois a streaming service that offers a huge library of content, including Thursday Night Football, Emmy winners The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Emmy-nominated satirical superhero drama The Boys, and the smash hits The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Thirteen Lives, Being the Ricardos, Reacher, and Coming 2 America.
Prime Reading connects readers to a rotating selection of 3,000 books, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, and comics. This includes Amazon Original Stories, binge-worthy short fiction and nonfiction from bestselling authors, acclaimed storytellers, and new voices including Dean Koontz, Mindy Kaling, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and more. Readers can also enjoy pre-release, editorially-selected Kindle books across genres through Amazon First Reads.
Prime members also have access to ad-free listening of 100 million songs and millions of podcast episodes with Amazon Music, and exclusive in-game loot, free games, and a free subscription on Twitch.tv with Prime Gaming.
2.
Shopping discounts
Prime members save on everything from groceries to prescriptions.
Let’s start with groceries: Prime members can score exclusive deals and in-store savings at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S. They get exclusive deals on select everyday favorites, essentials, prepared foods, and more at Amazon Fresh stores—and a discount off hundreds of sale items, and exclusive deals on select products at Whole Foods Market stores. To access these savings, find the “in-store code” on the homepage of the Amazon app to scan at check-out.
Prime members can also receive all of their eligible medications for one flat, low monthly fee of $5 with Amazon Pharmacy’s new RxPass.
Other big discounts include special pricing on Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Kids+, the only digital content subscription for kids with thousands of books, games, videos, Alexa Skills and more; and Prime Video Channels.
Prime members also have exclusive access to major deals during Prime Day, as well as 30-minute early access to Lightning Deals.
3.
Buy with Prime
Prime members in the U.S. can shop directly from merchants’ online stores while enjoying the trusted Prime shopping experience—including fast, free delivery, a seamless checkout experience, and easy free returns on eligible orders. Prime members see the Prime logo and delivery promise on eligible products in merchants’ online stores, which signals the item is available for free delivery, as fast as next day, with free easy returns. When shopping with Buy with Prime, checkout is simple and convenient. Prime members use the payment and shipping information stored in their Amazon account, and receive timely shipping and delivery notifications after an order is placed.
4.
Food delivery for $0 for a year
Prime members also can enjoy a one-year Grubhub+ membership trial ($9.99 per month value), which gives you unlimited $0 delivery fees on all orders over $12. You can devour this perk at hundreds of thousands of restaurants in over 4,000 cities across the country.
5.
Fast, free delivery
Prime members receive fast, free delivery on millions of items and can also choose from multiple delivery options to ensure a package is delivered to them when and where is most convenient.
Free One-Day and Same-Day Delivery: Prime members in the U.S. can shop a selection of over 20 million items eligible for Prime Free One-Day Delivery with no minimum purchase, and hundreds of thousands of items available for Free Same-Day Delivery, within hours, in more than 90 metros.
Same-Day Delivery from retailers: Prime members in and near select cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Washington D.C., have the opportunity to shop retail stores from their local mall, like PacSun, GNC, Sur La Table and SuperDry, through Amazon.com and the Amazon mobile app, for Same-Day Delivery. Customers can visit amazon.com/nearme to see if this service is available in their area.
Amazon Day: Prime members can select a designated day for a weekly delivery of their packages. This is a free, convenient way to select when and how your package arrives at your doorstep.
Members maximize Amazon’s enormous selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery with Prime. Find more information on Amazon Prime, including details on discounted memberships.
Christian de Looper is a freelance writer and editor whose byline can be seen at Forbes, Business Insider, Digital Trends, BGR, and more. Christian was born in Australia, and after spending five years in France as a teenager and three years in Minneapolis for college, he settled in sunny California where he now lives with his wife and cat.
