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Tech for Luddites

News, Views, and How-Tos for a Digital World

The Benefits of Amazon Prime

Last Updated: July 5, 2017

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Amazon PrimeAmazon frequently makes changes to its Prime membership program, so this post will attempt to keep up with all the major benefits available. There are a bunch of smaller benefits as well.

See the full list of Amazon Prime benefits and sign up for a 30-day free trial. >>

NOTE: Some of these benefits are currently limited to U.S. customers only.

Shopping Benefits

  • Free 2-day shipping on a large selection of products with no minimum order size and free 1-day (and sometimes same-day) shipping on certain products in certain markets. If you choose no-rush shipping you may receive a credit towards Amazon videos, songs, Kindle books, apps, Prime Pantry, etc. The value of the credit and what you can use it towards varies. See more shipping options. >>
  • Exclusive Deals of the Day and 30-minute early access to some Lightning Deals, which can make all the difference for whether you get the deal before it sells out.
  • Amazon Dash Buttons let you order popular brands of everyday necessities like laundry detergent, garbage bags, health and personal care items, pet supplies, etc. by pressing the button. See the full list of Dash products. >>
  • Purchase samples of select products in beauty, sports nutrition, and snack categories and receive credits towards full-sized items from the same brands.
  • Exclusive discounts on Amazon Prime Day and all-year round on certain products (e.g. unlocked smartphones, diaper subscriptions).
  • Purchase 5 items from a specific list of Prime Pantry products and Amazon will waive the $5.99 shipping cost.
  • Get 20% off select physical video games during the pre-order period until two weeks after release.

Media Benefits

  • Library of free streaming movies and TV shows, including their original content like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle. (Note that Prime videos are a subset of their full video library.) Some Prime titles can also be downloaded for offline viewing.
  • Amazon Channels: Add-on subscriptions to dozens of streaming video services including SHOWTIME, STARZ, ACORN TV, Lifetime Movie Club, History Channel VAULT, and SEESO. While these subscriptions may not cost less than if you order them directly from the providers themselves, this benefit means you don’t have to have all those extra accounts set up individually as everything is managed through your existing Prime account.
  • Amazon Strike is a Channel that brings you some of the world’s most popular anime, with new episodes every week. The service has a 7-day free trial period then costs $4.99 a month.
  • Discount pricing ($7.99/month vs $9.99/month) for Amazon Music Unlimited, for streaming tens of millions of songs.
  • Library of over a million songs you can stream for free without ads.
  • Free access to Audible Channels, their audio podcast service (regular price is $60/year).
  • Unlimited photo storage on Amazon Drive, accessible from your computer or mobile device. You can now also share your free storage with up to 5 family members.
  • Choose one book from the six Editors’ Picks each month in advance of the official release date through the Kindle First program.
  • Borrow books from Amazon Prime Reading or the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (select titles only). With Prime Reading you can borrow a subset of the Kindle Unlimited catalog of books, magazines, and more and read them on non-Amazon devices with the free Kindle app. The Lending Library lets you borrow one title for free per month to read on a Kindle, Fire tablet, or Fire phone.
  • Access free content on Twitch, Amazon’s streaming video game service, and enjoy ad-free viewing, free channel subscriptions, exclusive discounts, and more.

How much does Amazon Prime cost?

Amazon has three Prime plans available now. You can get all the benefits listed above with the $99 Annual plan or $10.99 Monthly plan. There’s also a Prime Video-only plan for $8.99/month.

You can also buy an Amazon Prime gift membership for either the full annual plan or a 3-month plan for $33.

Note: The minimum order size for free 2-day shipping without a Prime account is $35.

See all Amazon Prime terms and conditions. >>

Sign up for your free trial of Amazon Prime now. >>

Filed Under: Amazon, Amazon Prime, Deals & Discounts, Online Shopping Tagged With: 2016 blogathon, Amazon Prime Day

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