“Amazon raised the monthly rate for its Prime service by 18% on Friday, from $10.99 to $12.99. The annual Prime membership stays at $99,” Elizabeth Weise reports for USA Today.
“Amazon Video comes included in both the annual and monthly membership. The a la carte price for those who are not Prime members will remain the same, at $8.99 per month,” Weise reports. “The most recent Prime subscription hike came in 2014 when the yearly membership went from $79 to $99.”
“Forrester analyst Brendan Witcher said “when compared to similar offerings in the market, the $10.99 monthly Prime offering was priced too low.” Cobbling together a similar offering including delivery and free Cloud storage would cost far more, he said,” Weise reports. “Not raising the price for annual subscribers is more about creating loyalty, he said. ‘Leaving the annual rate as is fits with their strategy to encourage customers to see Amazon as a brand that will be part of their regular lives, rather than a monthly purchasing consideration.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nice to see the annual rate holding steady, especially since that’s our Prime membership, too. How about you? Are you an Amazon Prime member? If so, are you paying monthly or annually? If monthly, will this price increase affect you to change to annual or drop your Prime membership altogether?
I’m on the annual plan and plan to stay. I love it. So much so that I use my Fire TV all the time and my 4K Apple TV not so much.
And I detest the Apple TV remote.
I trust neither…especially the leader that’s w/o a notch.
People actually pay monthly? That’s dumb.
It’s possible they only want to sub for a few months out of the year for one reason or another (e.g. shopping season or long break allowing binge watching.)
I pay yearly. It works out well as I order a lot of items and usually one at a time. Amazon pays the shipping. And its tax deductible if done for a business.
Just saying.
I live in Tokyo Japan yearly prime membership is $40. Most things I order come same day or next without fail. The service is incredible here.
then adds shipping with charge in “order review” page. It would be normal to assume order would proceed with ship charge b/c of the earlier message, but Amazon has the charge automatically added. To me this is a tad slimy and sign of a business w/ a curious definition of “customer friendly.”
I pay annually and have ever since Prime began. However, I think it’s unfair to charge a monthly fee higher than what it is annually which Amazon does at present. Now, they are raising it even higher. Unimaginable! Unthinkable. Amazon makes billions of dollars a year as does Bezos himself. Why rip off, say Seniors, who may not be able to afford the annual fee but can get by pay a monthly fee only to be ripped off once again paying now an even higher monthly fee for no good reason. I simply can’t believe it—well, yes I can. Another way to make a buck.
Shameful!!!
The senior market may be something Amazon could target with a pricing similar to the Amazon Prime for students which has an annual price of $50.