This amounts to a 100% price increase in 18 months

Amazon’s slowly but surely rising the prices of its subscriptions. This time it’s announced that Ring Protect, a subscription service for the video doorbell, Ring is going up from £34.99 to £49.99 per year, an increase of 43%.

We’ve looked at a number of Amazon owned subscriptions to reveal just how much more Amazon is taking from the average household with the price rises, and whether there’s an alternative.

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What’s changed to the Ring Protect plan?

Ring has announced that it will be raising the price of “Ring Protect”, a Ring doorbell subscription, without which pretty much deems the doorbell useless. It’s going up from £34.99 per year to £49.99 per year, an increase of £15 per year or 43%.

This is the second increase in two years, with Ring increasing the price from £24.99 to £34.99 in June 2022, which amounts to a 100% increase in just 18 months. 

When do the new charges come in?

The increase comes into play on 11 March – if you’re due to renew your plan before this, you can take advantage of the previous price.

Can you beat the Ring protect price hike?

You can beat the price hike if you cancel your plan before 11 March and choose “Immediately” when it asks when you want to cancel. You’ll be given a pro-rata refund and can re-purchase a plan at the old price. If you do this as close to 11 March as possible, you can lock in the price for longer. We gave this a go and the refund was issued immediately.

If you’re on a monthly plan, your refund will be for the number of days you haven’t used.

If you paid for an annual plan, it works out how many months you didn’t use, so if a new month has just started, you’ll lose out on the rest of the month.

For example, my plan was due to renew on 4 May. I cancelled on 12 February and got £5.79 back. That works out as around two months, so I lost out on the remainder of February. You can avoid this by making sure you cancel just before your month is due to end.

Is there an alternative to Ring Protect?

There isn’t an alternative without buying a new doorbell, but don’t rule this out as an option. For the cost of a year’s subscription to Ring Protect, you could probably get a replacement doorbell that doesn’t come with a hefty annual subscription. 

In terms of continuing without the subscription, the features of the Ring Protect plan are mostly the reason you’d choose to own a Ring doorbell. For example, if you wake up in the morning and find that someone tried to break into your house in the night, you’d have the footage to prove it and hopefully help find the perpetrator. 

Without the plan, you’d need to see it all happen live, and you can’t keep recordings, which isn’t realistic or practical.

Other Amazon price increases

This is just one of many recent price increases to Amazon subscriptions. Here are some recent ones.

Amazon Prime

In 2022, Amazon announced a 20% rise in the annual cost of Amazon Prime, going from £79 per year to £95 per year. It’s slightly tweaked the offering and added things like free Deliveroo Plus and discounted Odeon tickets (an offer that can be beaten most of the time), but the general consensus is that it’s a huge price increase for a similar level of service.

In addition, last year it added a £1.99 delivery fee for same-day delivery – a service previously offered for free. We explored how much this might cost the average shopper and how to avoid the fee in our story. 

Prime Video

Just last month, we reported that Amazon was axing ad-free viewing for Prime Video, introducing an additional £35.88 cost per year to get the same level of service as before. This brings the price of Prime Video alone up by 42% or 38% if you get it with an existing Prime subscription. 

Blink

In addition, Amazon bought security camera company Blink in 2017. In 2023, both new customers and those that owned Blink cameras already were placed on a 30-day free trial of Blink Basic or Plus, costing £24.99 or £80 per year, depending on the number of cameras on your account. Those who opted not to continue with the subscription saw a significant decline in the functionality of the cameras.  

Recent Amazon subscription price rises

A household with Amazon Prime, ad-free Prime Video and a Ring doorbell with the Ring Protect plan will see an annual increase of £50.88. 

Since 2022 they’d have also had their Prime subscription rise by £16 (20%) and their Ring Protect Plan rise by £10. 

This brings the prices up by £76.88 per year.  

Is it time to ditch Amazon?

This is a really disappointing move for Ring doorbell owners and Amazon customers, and it might be turning even more people away from the company. Though, a lot might not even know that Ring is an Amazon company. 

As you might know already, in 2021, Editor-in-Chief, Andy opted to ditch Amazon for a full year, saving him around £200. Items were typically cheaper elsewhere, and the only thing he really missed was Prime Video. This can be paid for separately, though you’d have to put up with ads if you don’t want to pay the extra charge. 

It could be worth shopping around for alternatives to popular Amazon subscriptions and products to find some alternatives. There are lots of video doorbells and security cameras on the market at the moment that don’t have subscriptions. You can often get products for cheaper elsewhere, they just might have slower delivery. 

You only need Prime Video when you want to watch something – there’s no need to buy a whole year. If you use Audible or Kindle, you can access audiobooks and ebooks via your local library for free, and Spotify Premium customers can also get limited free audiobooks each month.