Amazon Prime Hikes its Annual Membership Subscription to $139

Amazon Prime is introducing hiked plans for Prime memberships for greater benefits and growing costs. The company is raising its membership plans for the first time since 2018.

The Revised Tariffs

Recently, Amazon Prime used its latest earnings to reveal its price hike. The company is raising the fee from $15 per month (which was previously $13), or $139 per year (previously $119). The Prime Student price is also reportedly going up from $59 per year to $69 per year.

The revised and higher rates will be effective from February 18 2022 for new customers. However, the raised prices will not be effective for the existing customers until they renew their membership subscription till March 25, 2022 or later. This provides an added advantage for users seeking to subscribe to the OTT platform as they can lock in the current price for a year.

Reason Behind the Hiked Rates

This comes amid rising operating costs for the retail giant. And this isn’t the only subscription service hiking prices, as streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have done the same in recent months. The company attributed the increase in plans’ tariff to the ‘continued expansion’ of Prime perks along with higher wages and transportation costs.

One thing which becomes clear is Amazon’s ambitious plans for Prime Video. According to some reports, the upcoming Lord of the Rings series is expected to cost $465 million just for its first season—and that is not including other big productions.

Beyond Customer’s Concerns

However, some argue that the company cannot blame the hike on financial hardships. Amazon’s net profit jumped nearly 57% in 2021 during the lingering COVID-19 pandemic which ultimately boosted Amazon’s core shopping business—hiking its profit to $33.4 billion. The increase in tariff might also irk people beyond Amazon’s customers.

Amazon is raising rates even as it fights workers’ efforts to improve working conditions, and as it faces increasing government scrutiny of its pricing and other practices. There won’t be much sympathy from some corners, then, even if Amazon does use the extra revenue to help staff.