If you’re on-board for Amazon’s monthly Prime membership, I’ve got a bit of bad news for you on this cold January morning. The company’s bumping up pricing from $10.99 to $12.99. Not the end of the world, of course, but that comes out to about $156 a year — a $24 increase over the old price.
Amazon has confirmed the price increase with TechCrunch and laid all of this out on its Prime page. It also handily points out if you bite the bullet and pay the $99 yearly fee all up front, pricing will stay the same. In other words, the company would really like to just lock you into that lump sum. The company settled on the yearly pricing back in 2014, when things went up by $20.
The increase will also impact the company’s newly introduced student pricing. That also gets an 18-percent increase, moving from $5.49 to $6.49. Like the standard Prime membership, the yearly fee is staying put at $49.
If you’re already locked into Amazon’s ecosystem, it’s still a good deal with the free shipping and access to Prime Video, Music, et al. For Amazon, it’s been a wildly successful method for becoming a one-stop shop for consumers. And if the company can convince you to opt-in on a per-year basis, all the better.
The fee kicks in today for new members. Existing subscribers will see the increase go into effective on the first renewal payment post-February 18.