For the first time in four years, the price of the Amazon Prime membership has gone up.
This comes as shoppers deal with spendier consumer packaged goods and cost increases for services like Netflix.
Here’s what you need to know:
New Prime memberships now cost $139 a year.
That’s a 17% increase over the $119 price, which was introduced in 2018. As of Feb. 18, any new Prime members will pay the increased price.
The changes also affect existing Prime members.
If you’re a current Prime member, check your renewal date; any renewal dates after March 25, 2022, will automatically be charged the new $139 rate.
Students, EBT subscribers, and people who pay month to month also pay more.
The Prime Student price has been $59 per year, and during the same February/March time frame, increase to $69 annually.
Prime also offers monthly subscriptions, and those customers pay $14.99/month — $2 more per month.
The EBT subscription for people who receive government assistance also increased by $1, from $5.99/month to $6.99.
Related: Find out more about the Amazon Access program and discounted Prime memberships.
Beat the price increase by getting free Amazon credits.
Yeah it’s gonna hurt to shell out more money once a year for your Prime membership. But the good news is that we’ve found a lot of free Amazon Prime credits that’ll help soothe the sting of the price bump.
Little tweaks — like opting for “No Rush Shipping” — will make it easy to more than make up for the price increase. Check out the full free Prime credits list.
Check out our Amazon Prime hacks; the membership is (still) worth it.
We’ve gone into great detail about all the ways to maximize an Amazon Prime membership, from Prime Video to grocery delivery to Whole Foods discounts.
In case you’re still on the fence, we’ve got a series of questions about Prime you can ask yourself.
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