Is Amazon Prime Actually Worth The Subscription Cost?

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E-commerce in the U.S. is a booming market valued at close to $1 trillion in 2023. That number is only expected to grow by an additional 50% over the next three years, making online sales the way of the future. The king of the hill, at least where e-commerce is concerned, is Amazon, a company that generated $365 billion in sales across the U.S. in 2022. While Amazon holds onto 37.6% of the online retail market in the U.S., that doesn't even take into consideration the $33 billion or $30 billion the company generated in its second and third-place markets, Germany and the United Kingdom, respectively.

Amazon Prime is a tiered subscription program offered by the e-commerce and streaming giant that allows members unrestricted access to special shopping and streaming services with discounted perks. While there are sneaky ways Amazon can trick you into spending more money, the jury is still out on whether or not Amazon Prime is one of them. The membership fee is $139 annually or $14.99 per month, while the Prime video subscription is $8.99 per month. Currently, there are 38 states where your membership is also subject to sales tax. However, the company seems to have considered a wide cross-section of people, including students, seniors, families, or people on government assistance. Is the membership worth the cost? We've compiled a list of benefits attached to Prime membership that may help make the answer to that question clearer. 

A significant benefit to Prime membership is the exclusive deal days. Amazon offers members major savings on gift items over two days, including tech, household, gaming, and beauty products. Lightning deals happen sporadically and offer members more deals with a very limited checkout window to click, buy, and save. Prime members are fond of the deals offered, too. Last year's 48-hour event generated $12.9 billion in sales for the company, which represented a growth of 6.7% in sales from the previous year on 375 million items purchased.

Several deals are generally offered for Prime members at any given time, with as much as 67% being knocked off the purchase price. This is true even when Prime Day isn't happening. With cuts this deep it may be worth it to try out a 30-day free trial just to experience these kinds of savings for yourself. 

The only thing better than more of a good thing is the ability to share it with others. Amazon allows Prime members to spread the love by sharing the benefits of membership with another family member or adult sharing your household. Simply log into your membership page, tap on the "Share your Prime Benefits" section, and then "Manage your Household" by typing in your beneficiary's email and name. This feature will include sharing your wallets — which Amazon monitors to inform you of your credit or debit card info being moved into your beneficiary's wallet — so ensure it's someone you trust. After agreeing to the terms and conditions, your beneficiary has 14 days to accept your invitation.

The company notes that Amazon Household goes even further, allowing for up to six people — two adults and as many as four people under 18 years old — to gain access to all the benefits of a Prime membership including exclusive deals, books, e-books, audiobooks, streaming content, expedited delivery, photo album sharing, games, and apps. This comes with parental controls over purchases and content, with the option to factor time management and educational goals into Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers. 

As an Amazon Prime member, you get Prime Reading for free. Prime Reading gives members access to around 3,000 magazines, comics, books, ebooks, and audiobooks, with an option to pay for a Kindle Unlimited subscription for even more readable content. While Prime Reading is perfect for classic book titles for kids, teens, and adults, Kindle will give you access to newer titles. That said, as an addition to your membership, thousands of free titles in different forms are still pretty impressive.

With the aforementioned Amazon Household, you can share your multiple Kindle books from your library with up to five other members of your household and control the settings, including parental controls for kids 12 and under. You can download up to 10 titles at once, with many of them having an audio option for narration. When you're ready for another title, you just return one and select another. If you consider the average book buyer in the U.S. spent $34.55 in 2022, and the average cost of a book is $13.95 to $17.95, the inclusion of thousands of books at your fingertips for the cost of a Prime membership is a steal for avid readers.

If all that wasn't enough, Amazon Prime membership includes a plethora of free games like the classic "Asteroid" rebooted as "Asteroids Recharged" alongside limited-time offerings for games like World of Warcraft and Pokemon Go. The average amount American families spend on gaming is $431 a year. Prime eliminates a lot of that cost through free gaming platform subscriptions like Twitch, with in-game freebies and of course, free games. These freebies together create a savings of $84.92 a year when you include the cost of a Twitch streamer subscription, in-game content, Jackbox game discounts, and free games.

Amazon has made some changes to its existing partnership with Twitch that will have streamers losing 25 cents off every $2.50 they used to make from each subscription, however, that cap helps to sustain free Prime member access to their favorite gamer stream, while also benefiting the highest earning streamers by placing no cap on their subscription payouts. Prime Gaming serves everyone's best interests, as long as you're a streamer with a whole lot of followers. 

Amazon Prime membership offers a way to get the best discounts if you're a senior through 50% off on all Prime benefits, starting with membership for $6.99. Anyone who receives Medicaid, SNAP EBT, or any other valid form of government assistance can also gain access to all the benefits of Prime membership for half the price. As long as you can provide proof of being a recipient by uploading a photo of your Medicaid eligibility letter, EBT card, or documentation proving your involvement in other government assistance programs — National School Lunch Program (NSLP), Supplemental Security (SSI), and Woman, Infants, and Children's (WIC) Programs, for example — you're in good standing. If you live in Puerto Rico, utilizing the Nutrition Assistance Program also makes you eligible. You'll just have to renew your membership through verification of your continued participation in these government programs annually to keep your half-price membership, which Amazon will inform you of by email.

Amazon offers SNAP EBT participants discounts through its grocery delivery service that includes produce, meat, dairy, bread, and cereals, as well as other pantry goods with reduced delivery fees — all the way down to free — if shopping through Amazon. That said, Amazon has also been taken to task by a 2020 US Government Accountability Office report that placed it and Walmart on a top 25 list of employers who paid their workforce so little that many of them have to supplement their diets and incomes through SNAP or Medicaid.