Amazon Prime is seeing a price hike, at least in America

Amazon Prime will be getting more expensive for both new and current members by the end of March in America.

Amazon has revealed that the price of a Prime membership in the US will be officially increased from $119 to $139 a year. Analysts suggest this has been caused, in part, by the rise in both wages and transportation costs in its logistics network.

Any new members will see the price change on 18 February, while current members will start paying more after 25 March. Anyone who has a monthly membership to Prime is going to be paying $14.99, up from $12.99 a month.

It doesn’t seem like Amazon will be changing the pricing in other countries, although Trusted Reviews has reached out to Amazon to clarify this.

A spokesperson for Amazon told Trusted Reviews: “This price change only applies to the US. We keep this under constant review, but have nothing to announce at this time.”

Looking back to America, Amazon mentioned that the expansion of Prime member benefits was one of the reasons for increasing the service’s overall price.

Amazon Prime passed 200 million subscribers last year, with Prime benefits expanding to include Prime Video, Twitch perks, Amazon Music Unlimited and the Prime reading programme, among others.

The last time the company upped its subscription fee was back in April 2018, citing higher shipping costs as the reason for the hike. The trend seems to show that the price goes up every four years, as the last change happened in 2014, when it cost just $79 per year.

The company also published an earnings release which shows that the company’s profit has dipped in the final quarter of last year, going from $6.9 billion to $3.5 billion, which may have affected the decision to make Prime more expensive.