Is Amazon Prime worth it? The good and the bad

You may have heard about some of the benefits, but is joining Amazon Prime worth it? I will go through some pros and cons of Amazon Prime membership for UK residents.

Believe it or not, Amazon Prime has been running in the UK since 2007. Back then, it was just a case of receiving free shipping with your orders, so whether Prime membership was worthwhile was fairly easy to work out.

However, over the last few years, membership prices have risen but we have also seen new Amazon Prime benefits added to the savings on shipping costs – making it far harder to work out how valuable membership really is.

Below, I’ve broken down the benefits to see how worthwhile Prime really is.

How much does Amazon Prime cost in the UK?

Membership for Prime customers costs £95 for a year. You may be lucky enough to find a deal for £59.99 and these generally appear in the run-up to Black Friday, but they seem to be appearing less and less. If you don’t fancy paying out in one lump sum, you can take out a monthly subscription for fee of £8.99.

Over the year, this will set you back £107.88, so it is a more expensive option to the annual fee. However, you aren’t tied to a longer contract, so you can cancel if you don’t think you’re receiving decent value.

Why not take a look at where to find Amazon Prime discounts?

How about a student discount for Prime membership?

If you have a student card, you can get a Prime membership for just £47.49 per year. The benefits are exactly the same as the full-priced membership.

Or a free trial?

If you have never been an Amazon Prime member, you can take out a free trial for one month. This is a great way to see if you will actually make use of the benefits included.

Free or discounted trials are sometimes offered to returning customers. I often find that I am offered a free trial every couple of months at the checkout page on Amazon.

And if you’re a student, you can get a free six-month trial of Prime.

What are the benefits of Amazon Prime?

With lots of pages about Prime on the Amazon website, it can be difficult to figure out what is included with your membership. Below is the complete list of Amazon Prime benefits.

Delivery

The 1^st benefit that springs to most people’s minds when it comes to Amazon Prime is free, next-day delivery. Usually, next-day delivery costs £5.99. So, if you make 12 orders or more per year, this covers the cost of an annual Prime membership. Or, if you can wait, you can use standard delivery for £4.49.

But delivery doesn’t have to cost non-Prime members… orders over £25 qualify for free standard delivery anyway.

So, if you make several small orders over a year and need your items quickly, Prime is great value. I use this all the time for last-minute gifts, mainly for children’s parties. If you’re more patient and spend over £25, then Prime Delivery might not be of much use to you.

But, there is one slight drawback. Next day delivery is only available on eligible items. Although this is for most items, it’s not everything.

There are also a couple of other delivery benefits – although these are only available in certain postcodes.

• Unlimited same-day delivery – if you need an item quickly, it can be at your door the very same day.
• Prime Now – if same day isn’t quick enough for you, Prime Now will deliver your items within 1 or 2 hours!
• Amazon Day – if you’re a regular shopper at Amazon, you may find it easier to have all your items delivered on 1 day. As a Prime member, you can select the best day for you.

Amazon Prime Video

With 1000’s of movies and TV shows on offer, Prime Video will be of interest to those of us who enjoy a night in. Obviously, there is far too much to list here, but there are some Prime-exclusive shows worth checking out. The Grand Tour, American Gods, Vikings and Jack Ryan all receive excellent reviews. A downside to the video service is that some of the best movies come with an extra charge (usually starting around £5.99). I’m never keen on paying a monthly charge and then extra on top.

Personally, I would not pay £95 per year for Prime Video alone, but it’s a nice extra to have when you’re looking for something new to watch. But, I certainly wouldn’t say it was as good as other streaming services like Disney+ or Netflix.

There are also some other streaming benefits included with your Amazon Prime membership.

• Prime Video Channels – this allows you to watch your favourite movies and shows through 3rd party providers, such as ITV Hub and Discovery. However, you may have to pay extra if they are a subscription channel.
• Twitch Prime – one for the gamers. Each month you will receive free games, in-game-loot and a free subscription to Twitch.tv.

Live Premier League Football and Tennis

In 2019, Amazon showed its first live Premier League games and it looks like this will be a common theme. Currently, they only show a handful of games and it comes at no extra cost. However, this may change in the future. Think back to when BT started to broadcast football. The first year it was free to broadband subscribers, then £5 and it seems to have increased ever since.

Amazon also broadcast plenty of ATP and WTA tournaments for all you tennis fans.

Prime Music

Prime Music offers access to over 2 million ad-free songs plus hundreds of playlists, featuring Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Paloma Faith, P!nk, and Coldplay.

Access to so much music is good value, but can also be a little frustrating. As you search through songs and find a track you want to play, you’ll sometimes find that to listen, you will need to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited. This will cost an extra £8.99 per month, giving you access to over 50 million songs. Which makes the 2 million I mentioned earlier seem very small. Plus, you can download music so you can listen offline.

Again, on its own, Prime Music isn’t worth £95. However, it can be nice to have if they have the songs you want.

Why not take a look at the cheapest ways to stream music?

Prime Reading

Prime members get access to a rotating selection of eBooks, magazines, comics and more! For keen readers, this is great as you will have a constant supply of new material. If you’re more of a selective reader, you may struggle to find anything you want to read. You will probably be better off visiting your local library.

However, Amazon First Reads allows you to read one of next month’s new Kindle book releases for free, making it more appealing.

Early access to deals

We all know that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become big news in the UK over the last few years, with Amazon often leading the way. Over the sales period, Amazon offers something called Lightning Deals. This is a short-term discount (usually for an hour) on a limited amount of stock. Prime members will be given early access to some of these, meaning they have less chance of missing out.

Amazon Prime Day

Not only do you have access to early deals for the days listed above, but you’ll also qualify for Amazon Prime Day. This event is hosted once each year (usually around July) and gives you access to exclusive deals. Although it’s called Prime Day, it takes place over two days.

Alexa voice shopping

If you own an Alexa device, you’re probably aware that it’s capable of plenty of things – including failing to stop when you ask it to. But one of the claimed benefits is that you can shop by using your voice.

In all honesty, it’s not something that I have used. It worries me that either my kids or I will end up ordering something I don’t really want. Plus, I find it much easier to find items just by scrolling through my phone.

Amazon Fresh

If you don’t think Amazon does enough, why not order grocery shopping through them? With quick 1 and 2-hour delivery slots available, your whole supermarket shop could be delivered by either Amazon Fresh or Morrisons. But once again, this service is only available in certain areas and you’ll need to spend over £40 for free grocery delivery.

Amazon Family

You can save up to 20% on nappies and baby food. However, it is possible to find better prices when supermarkets offer special deals. But this is good for anyone that is busy and doesn’t have time to shop around.

Prime Wardrobe

You can select from a wide range of brands for men, women and children and try them before you buy. If you don’t like an item, returns are free. The range isn’t as good as major fashion stores, but it’s still a useful benefit to have.

Prime Photos

You can store unlimited snaps with Amazon photos and access or share them from your phone, tablet or computer. You can keep unlimited photos and up to 5GB of videos. This is especially great if you keep running out of room on your phone and don’t want to pay for iCloud storage from Apple.

Prime Gaming

If video games are your thing, then Prime users will get the following benefits:

• New games included with Prime, yours to keep forever
• Level up with weapons, characters, skins, boosts, upgrades, and more

Share your Prime benefits

You can share your Prime benefits by linking your account to another adult – this is known as Amazon Household. They get access to Prime delivery and Prime Video for no extra cost.

How to claim a month’s free membership

If you decide to join Amazon Prime, here’s a little tip on how you might be able to extend your membership for free. As we all know, Amazon offers free next-day delivery to members. Occasionally though, Amazon won’t always deliver on time. If this is the case, contact them via live chat and speak to one of their advisors. Usually, they’ll apologise and extend your Prime membership for a further month for no extra cost.

So, is an Amazon Prime subscription worth it?

This is quite a tough one. All of the perks above are there to encourage you to spend more. Music, Video and Reading all offer great material… to a certain extent. But you’ll often find that there will be the temptation to pay for a specific film/book/song.

Delivery is extremely useful and regular customers will save on shipping costs, but as I said above, if you spend over £20 and can wait, you can receive it for free. If you have Prime Delivery, you’ll always go to Amazon without checking prices elsewhere.

It’s odd because I haven’t painted Amazon Prime in a great light yet am a member. However, this is probably because I earn a lot of free Amazon vouchers from all the online surveys I complete! I am also a member of Music Unlimited, which is very good value, especially compared to competitors like Apple Music.

If you’re unsure whether you would get the most out of Prime, don’t forget that a new member can take out a month’s free trial. It will give you an excellent opportunity to see how much use will get from all of the perks. And if it’s not for you, you can always cancel without charge.

Click below to find out more or start your free Amazon Prime subscription trial.

If you take out the trial, click on the Prime membership button in your Amazon account. From there, click on the button to remind you when your trial has three days to run. That way, you will receive an email to remind you to cancel if you don’t want to pay for continued membership.

If you enjoyed my post ‘Is Amazon Prime worth it?’, why not look at these great ways to earn free Amazon gift cards?

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