Published on January 19th, 2018 | by Brad Gibson

Amazon Prime monthly rate jumps $2 a month

Amazon increased its monthly Prime subscription cost Friday by $2 – an 18 percent jump – from $10.99 to $12.99. The annual subscription fee remains the same at $99.

The price of Amazon’s monthly Prime program for students, which launched this past fall, is also increasing 18 percent from $5.49 to $6.49.

The increase comes less than two years after Amazon first introduced the monthly payment option.

Prime includes unlimited streaming to thousands of movies and TV shows along with NFL Thursday Night Football via the Amazon Prime Video app, which is available from the Apple TV App Store. The subscription also includes two-day shipping of Amazon.com products with no minimum order size.

Amazon gave no specific reason for the price increase. The most recent Prime subscription hike came in 2014 when the yearly membership went from $79 to $99. Amazon began offering the monthly Prime package back in 2012 at $7.99.

Industry experts believe the increase is meant to push customers to the more expensive annual Prime package and as a result increases bottom line revenue for the online giant. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates Amazon had 90 million Prime members.

The Prime Video app debuted December 6.

Tags: Amazon, amazon prime, amazon prime tv, Apple, apple tv

About the Author

Brad Gibson Brad is co-founder and editor-in-chief of BESTAppleTV.com. He has been a technology reporter since the late 1980s having previously worked for MacUser, MacFormat, and iCreate magazines, as well as MacNN.com, MacObserver.com, MacCentral.com, MacMinute.com, and Macworld.com. He hosted and produced the MacFormat This Week podcast for three years. He was also a reporter, editor, and producer for the Associated Press and United Press International.