Earlier this month we reported Amazon had quietly kicked off a monthly billing option for its Amazon Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping, a free book per month from the Amazon Lending Library for Kindle, instant streaming of movies and TV from Amazon’s Prime Instant Videos, and more. The yearly cost of Prime is $79, so the monthly option gave consumers a way of spreading the cost of a subscription — albeit the total cost of a year’s subscription was a little higher ($95.88) when paying monthly.
At the time, Amazon confirmed to us the monthly billing option was just a test — so it’s not too surprising that, two weeks on, the monthly option has now been discontinued.
The nixing of the $7.99 monthly Prime billing option was spotted earlier by Phandroid. Amazon provided TechCrunch with the following statement confirming it has suspended the service
We regularly test new options for our customers. At this time, we are no longer signing up new customers for monthly memberships of Amazon Prime.
Amazon would not comment on why the test has been terminated after such a short period, or confirm whether it plans to offer monthly billing for Prime in future.
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon is one of the first companies to sell products deep into the long tail by housing them in numerous warehouses and distributing products from many partner companies. Amazon directly sells or acts as a platform for the sale of a broad range of products. These include books, music, videos, consumer electronics, clothing and household products. The majority of Amazon’s...
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
Boston, MA
