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Amazon Prime isn’t cheap. Seriously, $99/year for Prime? Is it really worth it?
Short answer: absolutely, totally yes.
Long answer: absolutely, totally yes, but you want to be smart about how you use it to maximize the return on your Amazon Prime investment. And take advantage of the Amazon Prime services you often don’t think about to increase your savings even more.
You could potentially save $80-$100 per month swapping out some of the services you pay for now for Amazon Prime Member Services!
First, Save Money on Your Amazon Prime Membership Fees
But paying full price isn’t really our style. Think of this $99 as the sticker price. There are plenty of ways to get your Prime membership “on sale”. So let’s see if we can save you some money on the membership fee before we even list all the ways your membership will save you money.
30-Day Free Trial
The first way to save big on your Prime Membership is to sign up for the 30-Day Free Trial. That way you can test drive the service and make sure you love it before you commit to anything or pay a dime. As with any free trial, make sure you cancel the service before the trial period expires if you’re not interested in continuing. Forgetting to cancel means you’ll be automatically charged for the service forward, so set a reminder for a few days before the expiration to evaluate the service and make a conscious decision to cancel it or to continue with it.
College Student Discount through Amazon Student
If you’re still in college, with a valid .edu email address, you can get a 6-Month Free Trial (instead of the standard 30-Day), And you save 50% off membership for the next 3.5 years! Amazon Prime for $50/year is a steal!
Introductory Credit Card Offer
Did you know you can get a $70 Amazon gift card if you’re approved for a Prime Rewards Visa and save 5% on every purchase using that card! That $70 goes a long way toward recouping your $99 annual membership fee!
But a credit card may not be the way to go if you have a spending/budgeting problem. You must pay the bill in full every month to avoid interest. And be careful not to buy things you don’t need simply because you have the credit line available.
Pay by the Month
Prime used to just be an annual membership for $99, but now you have the option to go month-to-month for just $10.99/mo. Of course the $99 is a better deal, but maybe you just want the membership for a few months to get the famous free 2-day shipping for holiday gifts. Now you can do that without spending the full $99!
10 Ways to Save Big with Amazon Prime
Time to talk about what you actually get for your money, and how much money it can save you.
Free 2-day shipping
Do you have family and friends scattered all over the country? Me too! And shipping birthday and Christmas gifts to everyone costs a small fortune, especially since we moved to Germany. That’s where Amazon Prime is a life-saver!
With your Amazon Prime membership, you get free 2-day shipping in the US on a huge selection of items (it’s mainly just the independent seller items that charge for shipping). This means you can send birthday gifts all year long, and Christmas gifts in a hundred different directions without paying a dime for shipping. And since they receive the package in just 2 days, you don’t have to plan weeks ahead. Yay!
This single Amazon Prime benefit saves me over $140/year, more than paying for the cost of the membership!
Savings: about $12/month on average
Video Streaming
There are thousands of movies and TV shows available for free with your Amazon Prime membership, including some great Amazon originals! Take a look at the titles available, and consider swapping Netflix (especially since Disney is pulling programming from Netflix) for Prime Video, or even canceling cable completely.
My happy compromise is Hulu for newer shows (just $8/month after your free 30-Day Trial), and Amazon Prime for movies and older shows I need to catch up on.
Savings: $10/month if you cancel Netflix and just use Prime, up to $50/month if you cut cable and just use Prime.
Music Streaming
If you’re paying $10/month for Spotify or Pandora Premium, stop! Amazon Prime Music offers over 2 millions songs, ad-free, with off-line play. And if you can’t find something you like in that 2 million song selection, upgrade to Amazon Unlimited Music. Prime members pay just $8/month instead of $10.
Saved: $10/month if you use Prime Music, $2/month if you upgrade to Amazon Unlimited Music.
Prime Reading
Prime Reading offers thousands of books and magazines for Prime members with no limit on how much of that content you read!
Side note: If you’re a more hard-core reader, you might want to upgrade to Kindle Unlimited for $9.99/month (same price with or without Amazon Prime Membership). Kindle Unlimited has over a million titles to choose from. And, you guessed it, offers a 30-day free trial so you can check it out before committing.
Saved: about $20/month for two paperbacks or one hardcover
Prime Photos
Are you paying for cloud photo storage? Why?! You can just use your Amazon Prime membership for free, unlimited Amazon Cloud photo storage in Prime Photos! It might not save you a ton of money, but it’s so great to have all your photos in one place, stored free of charge!
PS: even if you’re not a Prime Member, Amazon will let you store up to 5 gigs free just for being an Amazon.com customer!
Saved: $1/month
Earn Credits for No-Rush Shipping
Ok, let’s say you don’t need your items to arrive in the next two days. With Amazon Prime, you can choose to use slower shipping to earn credits toward future purchases! Depending on the items, you can earn $1-$5 per shipment.
Saved: $3/month
Twitch Prime
Any gamers out there? You need an Amazon Prime membership to access Twitch Prime. With Twitch Prime, you get 20% off new video game releases and free game loot. If you just get one game per month, you’re going to save over $140/year with your Amazon Prime membership!
Saved: $12/month
Subscribe and Save
Subscribe and save might not save you a ton of money, but the convenience factor is out-of-this-world! You can subscribe to products you routinely use to get them automatically delivered periodically. Think about those bulky or heavy items that are a hassle to get at the store, fit in your car, and carry into the house: dog food, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent. Let Amazon and your friendly deliverymen handle it for you!
Just be careful not to over-spend on these items. You’re still looking for a good deal here, right?
Saved: only about $2/month, but the convenience is awesome.
Amazon Family
If you have kids or will be having kids, Amazon Family is a killer Amazon Prime benefit! You get 20% off diaper and baby food subscriptions! You never have to worry about running out for diapers because they’re conveniently delivered to your door every month. Jennifer over at momtricks.com saved $246.51 on the first year of diapers for her newborn!
Saved: $21/month
Free 2-hour Delivery with Prime Now
In select US cities you can get free 2-hour delivery on certain items from certain stores with Prime Now. Think food delivered from local restaurants or groceries delivered from local grocers. You just need to meet the minimum order amount for that store or restaurant!
Savings: $10/month if you swap UberEATS for Prime Now.
Bonus Section: More Tips to Save Big with Amazon
But that’s not all! We’ve got a few more Amazon saving tricks up our sleeves.
CamelCamelCamel
CamelCamelCamel tracks prices on Amazon as they fluctuate so you can see if you’re getting a good deal on your Amazon items. You just sign up for a free account, and add items you’re interested in tracking. CamelCamelCamel will send you an alert if the price drops on an item you’re watching!
Add to Cart, but Don’t Check Out
If you’re not in a rush to get your order submitted, add the items to your cart, then don’t check out. Just walk away, and let it sit for a few days. Sometimes (not always), Amazon’s algorithms see merchandise in your cart and want to give you a little incentive to purchase those items, so they’ll reduce the prices on the items in your cart and email you the new, lower prices to close the deal.
Don’t Browse Amazon Warehouse, Amazon Outlet, or Amazon Goldbox.
Sure, Amazon Warehouse, Outlet, and Goldbox have some deep discounts, but chances are, you don’t actually need those items. So then you’re just buying to get a good deal instead of buying out of need. And that’s a waste of money.
Buy Discounted Amazon Gift Cards
You can buy gift cards online from sites like CardPool and Gift Card Granny at a discount. Amazon cards are discounted by as much as 7.5%. But of course Amazon gift cards a super popular because they’re so easy to use. These gift card discounters shine better with brick and mortar stores: like 50% discounts on Talbots gift cards.
Amazon Smile
Amazon Smile doesn’t exactly save you money, but it allows you to donate to charity at no additional cost to you. If you access Amazon through Amazon Smile (instead of just Amazon.com), Amazon will donate .5% of your purchase price to the charity of your choice!
Release-Day Delivery
Ok, you may not save money with release-day delivery, but it’s still a huge benefit for avid readers, film buffs, and gamers. When you pre-order soon-to-be-released books, movies, and games, Amazon doesn’t just ship your item on the day it’s released. They make sure you actually receive your item on release day! No waiting in line at BestBuy or waiting two days for shipping. Thank you Amazon!
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Did we leave anything out? Let us know in the comments if you have other ways to save big with Amazon Prime.
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