Bad news for anyone who buys their games through Amazon and expects them in a timely, two-day fashion – Amazon announced today that they would be raising the price of Amazon Prime from $79 to $99 per year. The discounted student fee will also be making a jump from $39 to $49.
This is the first price increase since the service’s launch in 2005.
Amazon contacted current Prime subscribers via email today with the following message.
Dear [customer],
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 [renewal date].
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
The new price will go into effect on April 17th, so if you don’t already have a Prime membership, now would be a good time to sign up. If you’re already member and your renewal period comes before that date, you’ll be able to renew at the original price for one more year.
Everyone else is out of luck… unless you take advantage of the loophole found by LifeHacker which involves buying a Prime gift subscription at the current price and sending it to yourself. Sneaky, sneaky.
