Pros and Cons of Amazon Prime

Since its launch, Amazon Prime has expanded into many other areas, including offering free streaming movies and music, rapid delivery options, and discounts on groceries.

New members can sign up for a free 30-day trial to sample all the Prime benefits before committing to membership. If you cancel before the trial ends, you won’t be charged. And even if you’ve signed up for the trial in the past, you can still sign up after at least a year has passed since your last trial.

Amazon also offers Prime members an extra 10 percent off items at Whole Foods Markets, as well as additional price cuts each week on select products.

Free same-day delivery: Orders that meet the minimum threshold, typically $25, qualify for free same-day delivery on more than 1 million items. Amazon will provide an estimated window of time for the delivery, and if your order doesn’t reach the minimum, you may be able to pay a small fee for same-day shipping.

Amazon Prime Day: Every summer, Amazon holds a major two-day sales event that rivals Black Friday, called Prime Day. This year the sale will take place July 16 and 17. You must be a Prime member to access the sale, which includes discounts on Amazon devices and popular products across a slew of categories.

Prime Big Deal Days: For the past two years, Amazon has held a second two-day sale to give shoppers a head start on holiday shopping. These sales, similar to Prime Day, lasted two days in mid-October, and Amazon offered countless deals on popular products and brands. As with Prime Day, you must have a Prime membership to shop the sale.

Lightning Deals: Members qualify for early access (30 minutes before everyone else) to short-term, deeply discounted Amazon Lightning Deals that often feature high-tech and fashion goods.

Prime Video: Membership includes instant access to tens of thousands of movies and TV shows, including Amazon original series. Prime is also the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football.” You can watch at home on your computer, Fire TV, or other compatible devices.

Amazon Music: This service offers unlimited ad-free access to more than 100 million songs and thousands of playlists, stations, and podcasts. The free version for nonmembers includes ads and has a large but limited library of playlists and stations. You can upgrade to Premium for $10 per month (even if you’re not a Prime member), which provides higher-quality music in either HD or Ultra HD, which may be optimal if you’re using high-end Bluetooth speakers to listen.

Amazon Photos: Secure unlimited photo storage in the Amazon Cloud Drive.

Grubhub+: Prime membership includes a Grubhub+ subscription, which otherwise costs $10 per month, at no additional cost. When this partnership was first announced, members were given a one-year subscription free. The offer was extended to two years, and now it’s simply another perk of paying for a Prime account.

Prime Gaming: Members have access to a free Twitch channel subscription, as well as select free games and in-game items.

Prime Reading: This service has replaced the old Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. It gives Prime members access to over 1,000 books, magazines, comics, and more. All of these can be accessed on a Kindle or Fire tablet, or through the free Kindle app on both iOS and Android.

Amazon Kids+: This monthly subscription service costs $6 per month for members ($8 for nonmembers)—you can also pay annually at $48 for members and $79 for nonmembers. It grants access to original content as well as content from brands like Disney, Nickelodeon, PBS Kids, Marvel, and Lego. You can try it for one month free of charge.

Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card: The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card, via Chase, gives cardholders 5 percent back on purchases made on Amazon and at Whole Foods, as well as with any Chase Travel purchases. Some purchases even qualify for 10 percent back, and those rewards can be used at Amazon or via Chase as cash back, gift cards, or for travel.

There are other benefits to using the card. You’ll get 2 percent back at gas stations, restaurants, and drugstores, and 1 percent back on any other purchases. There’s no annual fee, and if you use the card while traveling, there are no foreign transaction fees.

Amazon Pharmacy: Members can now use Amazon to access all their medications—and they’ll be delivered, so no more trips to the store. There are perks like discounts and automatically applied manufacturer coupons, and you can view and manage all your subscriptions from the app. There’s also a service called RxPass that provides more than 50 medications for just $5 per month.

Amazon Fresh: Amazon’s grocery delivery service allows Prime members to order their groceries online. This service used to cost an additional $15 per month but is now included in the cost of the full Prime membership. There is a delivery fee now, but it gets reduced the more you spend. Spend over $150 and delivery is free. For orders of $100 to $150, you’ll pay $4. Orders between $50 and $100 will see a fee of $7, and orders under $50 will cost an additional $10.

Whole Foods: Like Amazon Fresh, Prime members can have groceries delivered from Whole Foods. But the two can’t be combined into one single delivery because they’re packaged in different places. Delivery used to be free for Prime members but now costs $10 per delivery. You can still schedule a pickup at no cost, however. And Prime members can save an extra 10 percent off everything except alcohol whether shopping online or in-store. Plus, there are Prime-exclusive specials and sales.

Buy With Prime: Prime benefits now extend beyond Amazon’s own site. Members are able to shop at participating merchants’ online stores and still enjoy free expedited shipping and free returns.

Affirm: Amazon partnered with the buy-now, pay-later credit provider Affirm, allowing customers in the U.S. to split the total cost of eligible purchases of $50 or more into monthly payments at checkout, with no late or hidden fees.

Amazon Household: Two adults living in the same household can create an Amazon Household to share certain Amazon Prime benefits and save money on membership fees. And you can add kids to the plan: up to four teens and up to four children. Teens can shop, but parents must approve purchases. Adding children allows parents to manage parental controls on Fire tablets, Kindle E-readers, and Fire TV through Kindle FreeTime.

Amazon Key In-Garage Delivery: In 2017, Amazon launched Amazon Key, which allows couriers to enter your garage to drop off packages even when you’re not there. The service requires you to have a Chamberlain myQ Smart Garage Control system, which costs less than $30 and is easy to set up, according to our evaluator. You can also use this service if you have Aladdin Connect Wi-Fi RetroFit Kit, which CR has not tested. You can also connect your Ring camera to this service, but it is not required.

Amazon Day: Amazon added this feature to its Prime membership in 2019. Amazon Day offers consumers the option to schedule deliveries. If you know you’ll be home every Friday, for example, you can instruct Amazon to deliver all your packages that day. You can still choose to receive orders on other days and by one-day or two-day delivery if an item is needed sooner. This also allows Amazon to consolidate items into fewer boxes and cut down on the number of trips to your home, helping to reduce its carbon footprint. The company says it aims to make 50 percent of its shipments net-zero carbon by 2030.

Of course, not everything about Amazon Prime is worth the membership cost. There’s the question of how often you shop on Amazon. If you aren’t ordering much or you don’t think you’ll take advantage of many of the services membership offers, you might as well pass.

If you’re unsure whether Prime is right for you, consider signing up for a free trial. You’ll have 30 days to give it a test drive. But take note: At the end of the trial period, your credit card will be charged the membership fee automatically for the next period unless you cancel in advance.

Paid members who haven’t used their benefits are eligible for a full refund, which means even if you forget to cancel, Amazon will refund any charges—just contact customer service. You can’t receive a refund if any household member has placed a Prime-eligible order.

Get discounts, product recommendations, and buying advice from the shopping experts at CR. Sign up for our ShopSmart newsletter.