Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In case you missed out on the news from early February, Amazon Prime will see its first price increase in four years starting tomorrow, February 18th, for new subscribers. The annual cost will rise from $119 to $139, or if you pay monthly, it will go from $12.99 to $14.99. If you pay monthly, you’ll have no choice after tomorrow but to take the hit. Per Variety, the cost of the Prime Students membership plan will increase from $6.49 to $7.49 per month. All of this info is listed on Amazon’s support page.
However, if you have the means to front the fee for an annual Prime membership, doing so today will save you $20 compared to if you were to do the same thing tomorrow. That locks you in for a year of service at the $119 rate.
Current Prime subscribers can put off worrying about this until March 24th, which is a day before those same price increases will take effect. But while the deadline is a little further down the calendar, it can’t hurt to figure out whether you want to continue using Prime, or not. If re-upping for another year of Prime is in the cards for you, you can gift yourself a Prime membership for the $119 rate through March 25th, then activate it once your subscription lapses.
If you’re a chronic online shopper (or just someone who’s constantly ordering supplies for the house), Prime is a good value. In addition to getting fast, complimentary shipping on most items, it offers access to Prime Video for TV shows and movies, ad-free music streaming, and more. It also gives you the ticket to access Prime Day, Amazon’s annual members-only sale extravaganza that’s akin to shopping holidays like Black Friday.
Despite the price hike, Amazon hasn’t announced that any new features are coming to Prime. Analysts suggest that the price hike addresses rising costs that Amazon is facing across the company.