There has always been one, rather, large obstacle with Amazon’s Prime service.  An obstacle that has reared its ugly head whenever I had went to sign up for Amazon Prime.  The price.  No, it was not that I felt it was out of hand high, rather it was so hard to part with $99 all at once.  Sure, this was for a whole year but it was also for more than the regular “impulse” buy range.  Netflix, the biggest competitor for Amazon Prime, has offered monthly subscriptions for years.  This monthly option is probably one of the biggest reasons that Netflix has so many subscribers (it certainly can’t be because of the ‘new’ releases available).  Now Amazon has decided to take on Netflix head on, at least on a financial basis of the fans.  Besides, Amazon Prime has Thundercats.

The new pricing options are as follows:

$8.99 a month gets you unlimited movies and television shows
$10.99 a month gets you the above plus free two-day shipping, unlimited music streaming, access to millions of eBooks, early access/lightning deals and in select areas “same-day delivery”.
$99 a year gets you the above plus a 25% discount on the subscription price for doing annual instead of monthly.

So, as you can see, the cheapest option is quite similar to Netflix- no discounts on product nor shipping.  It is interesting though that for $10.99 you get “everything” Amazon offers for Prime.  For those that make any purchase on Amazon that requires you to pay shipping the $10.99 plan is the best deal.

For me, I have been a Prime subscriber for a year now.  I signed up at tax time when it is easier to make larger impulse purchases.  It remains to be seen if these new payment options will significantly increase the membership for Amazon’s streaming service though.

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