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Amazon Prime provides subscribers with free 2 day shipping, Prime Instant video, and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. For the past 9 years, the annual subscription has stayed steady at $79 a year. For current members whose membership renews before April 17th, they will get another year at $79. Those that renew afterwards will be charged the increased price of $99 a year. Amazon Student membership will increase from $39/year to $49/year.
Amazon is currently promoting Amazon Prime on the front page of their website with a campaign to sign up before March 20th to get a year of membership locked in at the lower price of $79.
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Amazon Prime offers free two-day shipping, the Kindle Owners Lending Library, which allows you to borrow 1 book a month, and Prime Instant Video to stream movies and TV shows. There is also rumor that Amazon is working on a streaming music deal to be included in Amazon Prime. If you’re not sure the benefits of Prime are for you,you can sign up for a 30-day free trial before March 20th and still lock in the lower price.
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Current members of Amazon Prime may have received an email similar to the following to let them know about the coming price increase.
Dear [your name],
We are writing to provide you advance notice that the price of your Prime membership will be increasing. The annual rate will be $99 when your membership renews on [date of renewal].
Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
For more information about your Prime membership, visit our Prime Membership page.
Sincerely,
The Amazon Prime Team
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$99 a year was the lower end of the range that Amazon announced in a quarterly earnings call where they stated Prime could rise up to $129/year.
Living in a smaller town without that many shopping venues, I certainly take advantage of Amazon Prime. I will have to consider if it is worth the $99 renewal though.