Amazon Prime is a subscription service that costs $12.99 a month after a 30-day free trail. In return for that you get:

• Free two day shipping
• Access to Prime Video (Amazon’s answer to Netflix)
• Access to Prime Music which allows you to listen to some free music
• Allows you to read 1 free book a month from the lending library
• Allows you access 6 monthly editors book picks that you can download and keep for free
• Access to Prime Reading which is a smaller version of the Kindle Unlimited program

My Thoughts:

I have had an Amazon Prime account for years and keep it mainly because I have several siblings that use it for the free shipping. I don’t really use Amazon Video but can see that there would be value there if you want to binge some new shows. I use the Prime music at work quite a bit when I want to listen to a specific album instead of a station on Pandora or Spotify.

The books that are available for free through Prime don’t really interest me. I do browse through the 6 monthly editor’s picks just in case because a free book is a free book, but rarely have I found something that I would want to read.

Overall, if there is a month that you are going to be making a lot of purchases through Amazon the subscription will definitely pay for itself. Other than that though it really just depends on if you are going to be using the other services you gain through Prime membership. If you aren’t it may benefit you to trim your budget a bit and get the Kindle Unlimited subscription instead.