Having access to the entire Amazon Music library for free is one of the biggest Prime member benefits. While you used to have to pay monthly to access all 100 million songs, in 2022, Amazon opened up their entire library to their subscribers as a part of the $139/year Prime subscription.
Before you cancel your Spotify Premium account, hang on a sec. While this is a pretty big plus to the list of perks for Prime members, there are some definite things you need to know about what Amazon offers and doesn't offer. Like, for example, this perk is different from an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. But more on that later.
If you're new to Amazon Music you’ll want to keep reading to find out exactly how you can use this streaming music service.
For more deals like this, you’ll want to text AMAZON to 57299.
Limited-Time Deal: Get Amazon Music Unlimited Free Trial
If you're new to Amazon Music Unlimited you can grab a free 3-month trial. After your free trial, you'll be charged $11.99 per month, unless you cancel before your trial period ends.
If you’re a Prime member, you have access to all 100 million songs on Amazon Music for free.
Obviously, an Amazon Prime membership isn’t free — it’s $139/year — but if you’re already a member, you can listen to the Amazon Music library.
How to start listening on the web:
Log in to your Amazon Prime account.
Go to the Amazon Music Prime page.
Click the “Listen Now” button.
How to start listening on mobile:
Download the Amazon Music app (iOS / Android) and log in with your Prime account.
Authorize your device to stream Amazon Music.
How to start listening with Alexa:
Ask Alexa to play a song or artist.
Alexa will tell you that you’re going to be shuffling.
Music will start playing.
You can only shuffle through artists and albums — no picking individual songs.
While you technically have access to everything in the Amazon Music library, you can’t just play whatever song you want.
If you’re a Prime member, but not a subscriber to the separate $11.99/month Amazon Music Unlimited service, you can only listen to artists or albums on shuffle. Still, the free shuffling for Prime members is better than Spotify Free because, unlike Spotify Free, Prime Music has no ads. You can create playlists using the Amazon Music app, but those will shuffle, too — and will play “related” songs.
So what’s the difference between Prime Music and Unlimited? Here are all the perks that are available via Unlimited, but not Prime Music:
Playing specific songs
Skipping as many times as you want
High-fidelity sound quality
Spatial audio sound
Tip: Amazon still really wants you to upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited. If you’re navigating the Amazon site, you’ll want to use the link above for Prime Music because otherwise you may end up accidentally signing up for Amazon Music Unlimited (although they often offer a free 30-day trial or three-month trial (like right now) so even if you sign up, you have time to cancel).
There’s a workaround to the shuffle-only restriction: Find songs released as singles.
If you search for a specific song and hit shuffle to start playing, you’ll most likely hear your target song as either the second or third song in the sequence. That’s been our experience, anyway.
But there’s another workaround. Many times, artists release their biggest songs as singles. Search for your favorite song, and if a separate single release turns up in the search results, play it. Basically, you’re “shuffling” a 1-song album. Shortcut!
RELATED: With Spotify Increasing Its Prices, Is Amazon Music the Better Deal?
Prime members can listen to select Amazon podcasts too.
Amazon has a bunch of their own in-house podcasts from their podcast studio Wondery. Anyone, Prime members and non members alike, have free access to those podcasts, among others. Although you can listen to select podcasts and episodes for free, most are ad-supported. If you prefer an ad-free experience, even as a Prime member, you'll have to subscribe to Wondery+ for $5.99/month (with a 7-day free trial) or $44.99/year (14-day free trial).
Amazon’s audiobook marketplace Audible (still) isn’t free.
Before you get too excited about all of the audio additions to your Prime account, just know that an audiobook subscription to Audible isn't free either (starts at $7.95/month).
But if you’ve never been an Audible Plus or Audible Premium Plus ($14.95/month) member before, you can get a 30-day free trial which will get you access to a selection of included originals, audiobooks, sleep tracks, podcasts, and meditation programs. Audible Premium Plus will also get you one free audiobook a month.
Want more audiobooks? Here are our tips for getting free audiobooks legally.
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