Wondering whether you should shell out for Amazon Prime? Here are the pros and cons.
Amazon Prime is a popular choice of subscription, but it comes at quite a cost. Here’s what you get if you sign up and our thoughts on whether it’s worth getting and when it should be avoided.
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What is Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime is a paid-for membership to the online giant that gives you a series of benefits that normal customers don’t have access to or have to pay more for. There’s a long list of these extras further down.
How much does Amazon Prime cost?
The free trial
Everyone can try Amazon Prime free for 30-days. It’s best to time your trial for when you think you’ll most need free delivery or when there’s a big promo event such as Prime Day, which tends to be in June or July each year; or Black Friday, which is on the fourth Friday of November each year.
Since every adult in the household can take out a free trial, if there’s more than one of you it’s possible to double up – or more. Once again, you can time these trials for times you’ll need to make more purchases, like ahead of an event or to prep for things like Christmas gifts.
You can repeat your trial a year after a trial has finished, so there’s the potential to do this every 13 months. And sometimes there’s even an offer earlier.
The annual membership: £95 a year
Amazon Prime costs a hefty £95 a year. This is a lot so you’ve got to use at least two or three of the perks for it to represent good value.
There used to be a couple of times a year where you could get the membership for around £59. These were usually in the run-up to Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday, though they’ve not happened in recent years. We always list these on our Amazon deals and discounts page, so bookmark it and check back!
The monthly subscription: £8.99 a month
If you don’t want to pay for the full year then you can opt for an £8.99 monthly subscription instead, which you can cancel whenever you want. It will work out cheaper than the annual plan if you pay for nine months or less, or practically the same for 10 months.
There’s a cheaper £5.99 option but this is just for the Prime Video streaming service and not the other features. This can be difficult to find so we have a guide to find Prime Video.
The student discount: £47.49 a year
There’s an option which gets students six months free, then three years at £47.49 a year. A monthly option costs £4.49.
To get this you need to have a student card. Sadly, the loophole where anyone could get a student card is closed, though you might be able to get an alumni card.
Again, each household member can have the trial, so you can easily double up.
What you get with Amazon Prime
Here are the key extras you’ll get as part of your subscription.
Free next-day, possibly same-day, delivery
There’s no minimum spend for delivery from Amazon when you’re with Prime, except if you want same-day delivery, where there’s a £20 minimum or a £1.99 fee. If you order from Amazon a lot, the free delivery can be pretty handy.
Normally you’d have to pay extra to get things sent through if the order is under £35, or £10 for books. The minimum amount quietly changed from £25 in June 2024, up 40%. This is standard delivery, so it takes a few days.
Generally non-Prime delivery will cost £3.99 for media (books, CDs, DVDs and games) or £4.99 for everything else. You can sometimes knock these down to £2.99 if you get your order sent to an Amazon “pickup location” such as a locker or newsagent.
So if you’re mainly thinking of Prime for delivery, you’ll need to make 20 orders under £35 in a year to break even with the pickup deliveries, or 16 at the higher £4.99 charge.
However, since not everything on Amazon is sold by Amazon, there will still be items that aren’t eligible for Prime delivery.
Two Odeon tickets for £10
Once per month, Prime members can get two Odeon cinema tickets for £10 or two recliner tickets for £15 at Luxe cinemas on Mondays to Thursdays.
There are better Odeon deals and offers available, especially when you consider that tickets at some Odeon venues are typically £5 with myODEON anyway and can be booked with Meerkat Movies, making the tickets half the price.
Exclusive access to flash sales such as Prime Day
In the middle of July (16 and 17 in 2024), Amazon marks its birthday with Amazon Prime Day. This usually features some big discounts on Amazon products like Kindles, Echos and Fire TV, as well as all sorts of other items. These deals are only open to Prime members.
The Black Friday sale which tends to run for about 12 days, if not longer, is another big sale with extra offers for Prime members.
We find that most of these deals are stock clearance or encourage you to buy things you don’t need. However, there are bargains to be found, especially if you utilise some of the extra vouchers to buy things you actually need.
Early access to “Lightning Deals”
As a Prime member, you can buy the daily deals 30 minutes earlier than everyone else. Since stock is usually limited, this could be the difference between getting the item and missing out. Here’s more about how Lightning Deals work.
TV and movies with Prime Video
There are some good exclusive TV shows such as The Boys and The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, and plenty of other box sets.
There are also some decent recent and classic movies. Amazon is making more original movies and has purchased the legendary studio MGM, so we’ll see even more films appearing just on Prime.
You can stream from your computer, smart TV or devices such as a Chromecast or Fire TV stick, or download to your phone. Don’t forget though that this costs £5.99 a month on its own, which might be a better option for you.
You can’t get ad-free streaming, though. Amazon introduced an extra £2.99 monthly charge for ad-free Prime Video in January 2024.
Pay less for your streaming
Find out which streaming service is the best value for money
Live Premier League Football
Amazon is also increasing the sports you can watch exclusively via Prime Video. You’ve recently been able to watch live Premier League football and Champions League football with it.
The Premier League matches are only over two weekends, usually in December (in 2023 it was 5/6 December and 26/27 December). This means you don’t need Prime for the full year if you only want it for football. Unlike on TNT or Sky, you can watch every single fixture on those dates. You can read more about the cheapest ways to watch football in our summary.
Ad-free streaming with Amazon Music Prime
This included streaming service is better than it used to be. It’s ad-free and has grown to 100 million songs (similar to Spotify) so there’s plenty to keep you occupied if you don’t want to shell out extra for premium music streaming.
The problem is you can only shuffle your tunes. That’s ok if you’re mainly listening to playlists (which you can create), but it can be annoying if you want to hear an album from start to finish.
You can also listen to podcasts ad-free – including our one, Cash Chats.
There is an extra Music Unlimited service which you pay £10.99 for, and there’s a £1 discount for Prime members, however, there’s a trick to pay upfront for a year to get Music Unlimited even cheaper.
Digital books and magazines with Prime Reading
Every month Prime members get access to a few thousand ebooks and magazines to read via a Kindle, Kindle app, or even your computer. There are a few big titles, such as the Harry Potter series, but otherwise don’t expect to pick up all the novels on your reading list.
The magazine offering isn’t bad, but the titles change every month. It’s better instead to see if you can get digital magazines from your library.
There’s also “First Reads” where you can pick up a free Kindle book each month from a selection of six or so titles. But don’t expect any future award-winners. You can see previous ‘First Reads’ titles here.
Games via Prime Gaming
You’ll get a Twitch channel subscription each month, along with some free PC games to play.
Unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos
Amazon’s cloud-based storage will keep the photos you take safe if your computer or phone is lost or stolen. You also get 5GB of storage for other file types with Amazon Drive – the same you get with Apple iCloud, but less than the 15GB with Google Drive.
Free Deliveroo Plus
You can sign up for a year of Deliveroo Plus Silver, which will save you money on delivery costs, worth £3.49 a month. However, there’s still a minimum spend of £15 per order. Here’s more about Deliveroo Plus.
Access to Amazon Fresh grocery delivery services
Prime members also get to order food from their local Morrisons, Iceland or Co-op and from Amazon Fresh. It’s free delivery for baskets over £60 but charges you £2 for orders between £40 and £60 and £4 if the total is under £40 or if you want the delivery within two hours.
Free Hello Fresh delivery
Prime members get free delivery on their Hello Fresh orders for a year. Delivery usually costs £4.99 for each box.
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What you don’t get included with Amazon Prime
You’d be forgiven for expecting Prime to give you all the extra services Amazon offers. But no, you need to pay extra for the following:
- Amazon Music Unlimited – an extra £9.99 a month
- Kindle Unlimited – an extra £9.49 a month
- Ad-free Prime Video – there’s an extra charge of £2.99 per month for this
- Audible audiobooks – an extra £7.99 a month
- Amazon Channels – costs vary for extra TV channels such as Paramount+ and Discovery+
What’s good about Amazon Prime
People obviously love the next-day delivery, and it’s certainly a service that other retailers find hard to compete with. And there’s much more you can get on top.
If you use most of the features that come with Amazon, you’re getting a lot for your money – effectively £7.92 a month if you pay for the year. Here’s a quick comparison of how this stacks up against some key competitors:
| Prime Membership | Cost with Prime | Alternatives | Cost of Alternative |
| Free next-day delivery | £95 | Paying for delivery charges elsewhere (three orders a month at £2 an order) | £72 |
| Prime Video | Included | Netflix (standard) at £10.99 a month | £131.88 |
| Amazon Music Unlimited | Extra £79 | Spotify Premium (annual subscription discount) | £99 |
| Total £174 | Total £302.88 |
We’ve assumed three online orders a month with a charge of £2. Often you’ll get free delivery from other retailers, but charges will also vary. And, you might order more or less, and delivery charges might be different too, but this gives you an idea.
With TV and film streaming, Prime Video is cheaper than Netflix, even when subscribed for full Prime rather than on its own.
And even with the extra charge for Music Unlimited, it’s cheaper than buying the same service with Spotify if you are also using the other parts of Prime.
Prime members can also get access to extra vouchers and discounts, which are great if you are going to spend the money with Amazon anyway.
What’s bad about Amazon Prime
There’s a reason that Amazon packs so much into the membership. It doesn’t want you to spend money elsewhere. If you’ve already paid for delivery with Prime, you’re not going to want to make orders with other retailers and pay for delivery, or get it later than you could with Amazon. This stops you from shopping around. And you could easily end up spending more money as a result.
In part, that’s because Amazon isn’t always cheaper. Across my year without Amazon in 2021 I actually saved money on his purchases – even when you factor in the delivery costs.
Plus, you’re much more likely to buy more because you have Prime. Not just because you’re more likely to be on Amazon more often and open to more temptation, but also because those extra discounts encourage you to make unnecessary purchases — such as on Prime Day and during Black Friday.
You also lose the friction that added delivery costs can add to your purchase, which might usually make you think twice before buying something you don’t need.
Let’s also look again at the table above. Yes, it’s potentially a huge difference in spending, but that’s assuming you don’t also pay for the other services elsewhere.
If you do want Disney+ or Netflix, then also having Prime for film and TV won’t be saving you cash – it’s an extra cost. It’s only cheaper if you ditch the others.
And if you need to shop elsewhere (not everything is on Amazon) you’ll pay for delivery on top.
Is Amazon Prime worth it?
So, does Amazon Prime offer good value for money? Well, it can, as long as you use at least a couple of the services. Most people will get enough use from the free delivery and exclusive discounts on Prime Day and Prime Video to justify the £95 fee.
However, if you end up buying more and not shopping around because you have Prime, you’re likely to spend more money having Prime rather than not having it.
Don’t forget you can still shop at Amazon without Prime. Yes, you might pay between £2.99 and £4.99 for items under £25 (it’s under £10 for books). But you’d need to order something under that threshold roughly every fortnight to cover your £95 fee. Do you order low-cost items that often from Amazon?
And of course, you need to consider where else you shop. It ultimately comes down to whether you are dedicated to Amazon or happy to shop and stream elsewhere.
If you don’t want to stop completely, then maybe you could cancel your annual membership and go monthly. And then pick and choose the months you need to use it. So perhaps it’s just around Prime Day, Black Friday and when you want to binge on some new box sets. Just see how you go!
My year without Amazon
Why I cancelled Amazon Prime membership
I actively chose to go without Amazon in 2021, so I obviously cancelled my Prime membership – even though I was paying just £39 a year.
This was largely a step to proactively support other retailers (ideally on the high street). But I also wanted to make sure my money didn’t help Amazon continue to grow its profits while it manages to (legally) avoid paying a fair rate of tax here in the UK and elsewhere.
Of course, you might think that going without isn’t possible, but I’d urge you to give it a try. I found it so much easier than I thought I would, and I’ve been surprised by how much less I bought and how much less things cost at the same time.
You can read more about my year without Amazon and how much money I saved.
How to cancel Amazon Prime
Watch this video to see how you cancel – and why you might want to think about using Amazon less.
Other ways to save at Amazon
Make sure you check out our Amazon deals and offers. This is where we’ll list flash sales, gift card bonuses and other extras. For example, you can often get a free top-up when you buy a gift card. All this and more via the link below.
Save more at Amazon
Check out the latest offers and deals to save you more money at Amazon
Honestly, I’ve always had a great experience with Amazon. If I need anything it’s usually my first shopping portal, I have noticed they are not the cheapest and some of the stores appearing on Amazon are basically selling crap, but I feel secure shopping with Amazon because if their refund policy. It’s a click away to get a customer service person. A real person not a bot! You don’t get that anywhere anymore and they are always so helpful.. the video used to be good but now most of the titles you have to purchase to watch. Not much is included free anymore. I didn’t really listen to music unless it’s sleep radio for an hour at night on my echo dot. My main reason for considering cancelling though is the things I hear about how they treat their staff. Do now I’m thinking how much do I use it and do I really need it. My only real question is will I lose my purchased videos/box sets. Seems like a silly question but occasionally I lose access to a purchased film for a spell because it’s been added to Paramount channel and I don’t subscribe to them. It’s not a deal breaker, not worth a monthly subscription to keep box sets I’ve bought. I really don’t like their video service Netflix and Disney are way better but the shopping is an excellent service
Don’t know how it happened
Was checking out and normally offered a 30 day trial but a month ago was offered student prime 6 month…..no email required I just clicked that I graduated in 2024.
Wife got the same 18 months ago and at the end of 6 month trial took up the £39 a year student prime which has just renewed again at £39
In both cases no student email was asked for it was just offered on the payment page instead of the normal 30 trial
Took out free month prime which I cancelled within the month, discovered four years later they were still taking £7.99 a month, so cancelled again, this time cancelling my card number too, two months later I had my second request to update my card because they were having trouble debiting my account, surely thats fraud or malpractice, so have they legally managed to take £400 out of my account, or do I have recourse, its a scam!!!
My Partner, I very recently discovered, has been paying Amazon Prime £7.99 a month for the last four years without her knowledge. All she can remember is purchasing a present and it being sent to her daughter in the US.
She is now in Slovakia looking after her parents and is unable to return to the UK.
We did manage to cancel her “subscription” and were promised a possible refund of £7.99. Is it possible to get the rest refunded? anybody know How?
Many Thanks
I’ve used free Amazon trials on and off and at the moment I’ve had a student membership for some reason. BUT, I can hardly find anything I want to watch on Prime Video and several orders that were supposed to be delivered next day went missing! Trying to get hold of someone to sort that out the first time was a pain in the backside.
I’ve cancelled my student membership TODAY because I don’t want to give Bezos any more of my money. I’d rather support smaller businesses – I don’t know why I got sucked in. I tend to buy books and DVDs second hand from World of Books these days, and I use Etsy a lot.
I have cancelled Prime, and they even refunded one month (back in January). Since then they have continued to take £7.99 per month from my bank account. ~The only way the bank can stop it is by issuing a new card. I’m 82, and they reckon they can get away with it. It seems impossible to contact anyone at Amazon.
Try this contact page (I’m sure you already have) https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/contact-us?ie=UTF8&ref_=hp_ss_v3_cu_t4&
There’s an option that says “need help over the phone? We can call you”, which might help you get through to a real person!
Good luck. Let me know how it goes
Look up CEOEMAIL
That lists the bosses of most big companies
I take Amazon’s free trials when I can. Then I buy up my stuff within that month. I might then pay for a month and do the same. And I do find the Prime Video and Music services you get within Prime pretty good. But it’s nice to then “rest” for a few months without Amazing Prime – because, yes, there is that tendency to want to make the most of Prime when I do have it – more purchases, more video watching, etc, which can get tiring! Overall, though, I find it a great service package when I do use it periodically. But when I stop it, I find that All4+, just for viewing of course, very much suffices my viewing. There is so much on All4 and the £3.99 after the free month for All4+ is good value just to avoid the TV ads. It’s the TV ads that buffer, not the shows themselves.
Great information Andy I am a priime member you used to be able to see your total spend for year before on Amazon but now its hidden as people spend more with easy 1 click
do you know where you can find this information as lots of people asking on Google too, would be great to do an update on it.
best regards Simon
I like amazon prime, but what I really hate is the fact that you can only download up to 24 episods or 15 movies as the limit, which is poor compared to other streaming services.
With youtube you can download as much as you want at anytime.
I would download on youtube up to 40 gigabytes of content and maybe 20 gigs on netflix, which is 6 seasons of a tv show which is very good.
if you had no internet service
And had to relie on your downloads to entertain you on a dessert island, use youtube or netflix for your downloads,
not amazon prime.
Please amazon do something about your download limit.
Amazon pushing people for a prime delivery, making it easy to make a mistake and a role to the membership. I made a mistake 3 times and I have to cancel the membership and I am thinking stop using Amazon altogether, very bad a practice by Amazon
Spot on Mohamed, I’ve done exactly the same thing and let Amazon know what I think about it. I too have just cancelled for the third time. I’ve started to buy elsewhere for several reasons. First the one you have mentioned regarding coercing you into starting Prime membership; second I want to support the local High Street or other smaller UK businesses and the fact that Amazon don’t pay enough tax. I have to say though that apart from that their service is very good.
Wow! After reading the review, then the readers’ comments, I have decided to steer clear of Amazon Prime and, since they were mentioned, the other movie streaming services.
100% discount.
Had student membership and cancelled. Got charged 10.99 dollars next month. Phoned up to complain and was told reason for charge was I had cancelled on the UK site and not on the US site Amazon.com
I accidentally signed up for Prime, apparently. I decided to wait and see what it was like. The film streaming appealed to me. So far I have not found any film I can watch for free. No matter what I type in, the greedy bastards charge you more on top of the annual fee. I must remember to cancel this load of money grabbing shite soon.
Yeah, I find it’s the TV offering which is stronger. But it’s often a similar case with Netflix. Very few recent releases on either streaming service
AMAZON PRIME FREE FOR 1 MONTH SO CAN I CANCEL IT CAN HAVE MY MONEY BACK PLEASE MRS PAULINE YATES
Hi Pauline, you’ll need to go into Amazon and you can cancel it there. If you’ve been charged after the trial and not used any Amazon services get on the live chat with their customer service.
Do in PC/Laptop to take screenshots as proof
I have just CANCELLED THE USELESS trial PRIME MEMBERSHIP…..this is TOTALLY USELESS….AMAZON IS ASKING EXORBITANT SHIPPING FEE even with this promised benefits of free shipping. this is FRAUD! this is but a lie.
After failing to deliver Prime services on multiple occasions following one of the worst experiences and rude customer service manager over the phone, Amazon further went ahead and decided to ‘reject’ my review on their website. Have now cancelled membership.
I am hereby in the process of submitting an ombudsman complaint.
I unwittingly allowed myself to be enveagled into Amazon Prime membership and the stress of extricating myself resulted in me avoiding Amazon forever
Oh really. What happened?
The films are after you pay your monthly fee amazon charge you a monthly fee as well as charge you for certain films, what’s all that about? Sky store is exactly the same second rate films that are free on now tv but have to pay on scamazon prime.
Ah right. So which services have which films comes down to rights. Films come and go from each service, and the ones included with Prime could well be different to the ones included with Now TV/Sky or Netflix. Then there are extra films you can rent (as you can from iTunes, Rakuten, Chili, Google and as you say Sky Store). It’s going to get worse (i.e. more expensive) to see all the films once Apple and Disney launch their own streaming services.
Are we paying for Mr amazons divorce. You can get films for free on now TV rather than pay £3:49 to rent or £8.99 to buy. Renting you are limited to 48hours to watch. This is a joke, at least Dick turpin had the courtesy to wear a mask when he was robbing people. Why is this called prime? I can only assume its because they reel you in and lube you up when thee pull your pants down.
It’s a good point about Now TV. However it’s not free – the Cinema package costs £11.99 a month (full price) and the TV package is now £8.99 a month. With Prime you get lots of very good TV to watch and plenty of movie choice for around £6.60 a month. So it’s better value in that sense. Though personally I tend to choose the streaming service based on what I want to watch. And of course there’s Netflix too!