Amazon Prime price increase: Can (or should) you try to beat it?

Plus how to cancel your Prime membership.

Amazon Prime is getting more expensive. It’ll cost an extra £16 if you pay upfront for an annual membership, or £12 more if you pay monthly. Student memberships are also going up in price.

It’s the first increase since 2014, and will mean you’ll pay close to £100 every year to get access to benefits such as free delivery and movie streaming.

It might be possible to beat these increases, depending on how you currently subscribe. I’ve shared how you can do this – and whether there’s an even better way to spend less.

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How much will Amazon Prime cost?

From 15 September 2022 any signups or renewals will be at the new prices. The biggest change will be for the annual subscription, which will go from £79 a year to £95.

If you pay monthly you’ll pay £1 more each month, moving from £7.99 to £8.99. If you pay this way for a year you’ll spend £107.88.

Student prices will increase by slightly larger percentages.. The annual membership changes from £39 to £47.49. while it’s an extra 50p on monthly payments, moving from £3.99 to £3.49

However, it looks like there are no changes to the Amazon Prime Video subscription. This will stay at £5.99 a month.

Membership	Current Price	New Price	Increase
Prime Monthly	£7.99	£8.99	£1 (12.5%)
Prime Annual	£79	£95	£16 (20.25%)
Prime Student Monthly	£3.99	£4.49	50p (12.5%)
Prime Student Annual	£39	£47.49	£8.49 (21.8%)
Prime Video Monthly	£5.99	£5.99	£0

What you get via Amazon Prime

The main benefit people get Prime for is the next day free delivery, but film and TV streaming is another big draw. On top of this is limited free music streaming, a free Kindle book each month and access to extra offers such as the Prime Day sales. Here’s my full review.

Can you beat the Amazon Prime increase?

Not every Amazon Prime member will be able to avoid the new costs, but there are a few different options to either keep it at the same price, or perhaps even pass less over a year.

You definitely want Prime for a year

You currently pay monthly

There’s one very easy way to avoid the increase if you currently pay monthly. Signing up for an annual membership before 15 September will mean you’re locked in at £79 for the next 12 months.

I’d leave this change until as close to the price hike date as possible to ensure you let the £79 pass for as long as you can. It’s easy to do in your Amazon account.

This will save you £28.88 over 12 months versus paying the new £8.99 monthly price.

You currently pay annually

Anyone whose existing annual membership is up before 15 September will automatically renew at the current price

But if your annual subscription ends after this date, you’ll renew at the new full price. So tough luck? Well there might be a trick that could work – but there’s no guarantee.

You could try to cancel just before that date and then see if you can sign up again at £79. However, it’s possible the subscription won’t end on the day you cancel. Instead it could carry on until the initial end date, which might make it hard to sign up again at the lower price. It’s worth a try though.

Bear in mind that it’s unlikely you’ll get a pro-rata refund on unused months, and since the change in price is £16, you’ll only want to consider this option if your membership is due to finish before mid November – otherwise you’ll have effectively have paid the new price anyway.

You don’t really need it every month

Though there’s a discount to be had when you pay upfront for a year, it’s only a saving if you use Prime every month. At the existing prices you needed to use Prime 10 months out of the year for the annual membership to be cheaper.

That’s still the case with the new prices when you compare 10 months at £8.99 (£98.89) versus a year upfront (£95). So if you pay for Prime for just nine months of the year (and remember to cancel the months you don’t need it), you’ll pay £89.90 – saving £5.10.

But really you need to compare this new monthly price with the current annual price. Doing this means you’d need to use Amazon nine months of the year for the £79 annual membership to work out cheaper.

Of course, the fewer months you use, the less you’ll pay over a year. And don’t forget you can get a free trial every 12 months, and that can be taken by each adult in the household.

There are also occasional offers to tempt you to sign up again. I’ve seen deals such as 99p for a week and £3.99 for a month quite a few times in the last year.

Only watch Prime Video? There’s a better option

If you only want film and TV streaming, then the £5.99 cost for Prime Video is now even better value. Even if you kept this for a year you’d pay £71.88 -£23 less than an annual full Prime membership.

And since it’s monthly you’ve got the choice to cancel when you’re not watching – or more likely when you’re watching another streaming service.

I don’t think it’s possible to watch more than one paid for service at any time and get value for money, so I always suggest you mix and match Netflix, Disney, Prime and co month by month.

Do you really need Prime?

How to cancel or change your Amazon Prime membership

If you decide you don’t want to carry on paying the full price then it’s actually very easy to cancel your membership. It’s the same process if you want to change your type of membership.

• On the top right of the screen (desktop), selected the “Account & Lists” dropdown menu.
• Go to “Your account”
• Then select “Your Prime Membership”
• Change your subscription under “Manage Membership”
• Choose either to cancel your membership or select “See more plans” to see other options