Amazon is the world's largest and most successful online retailer for a reason, with millions of shoppers spending many millions of dollars every single year. Amazon isn't just about shopping, though, with the multinational corporate behemoth amassing services and products from across a myriad of industries for your benefit, including movie and TV show streaming, ebooks, food delivery, and much more.
It's easy to take advantage of it through Amazon Prime, a subscription-based membership that makes shopping through Amazon so much easier (and cheaper) — and that's before you consider all the other exclusive benefits and perks an Amazon Prime membership gets you. You can sign up for Amazon Prime with a free 30-day trial at Amazon if that's all you need to get started, or you can keep scrolling for everything you need to know about Amazon Prime.
Aside from personally shopping at Amazon for many years, I've covered multiple Amazon Prime Days and Amazon Big Deal Days during my time with Windows Central. I'm well versed in the art of hunting down the best deals on tech, gaming, and software, and that journey often takes me to Amazon and its exclusive Prime members deals.
Amazon Prime membership benefits explained
To begin, let's break down exactly what subscribing to Amazon Prime will get you as a member — and it is a lot. Other retailers have similar memberships such as My Best Buy, Target Circle, or Walmart Plus, but none boast quite the list of benefits and perks as Amazon Prime. I'll start with the benefits that actually help you when shopping on Amazon and go from there.
- Same-day, one-day, and two-day free shipping. Amazon Prime grants you immediate access to free shipping on millions of items, and you actually have a few different choices depending on the product you're buying and what you need.
- Two-day shipping applies to many millions of items on Amazon and is the default option.
- One-day shipping is available for over 15 million items on Amazon, so take advantage if it's available!
- Same-day shipping is also available in select areas for over 3 million items, as long as you meet the eligible threshold, and can get you your package in as little as five hours.
- Amazon Key lets you get your packages safely delivered inside your garage, so you don't have to worry about theft, although this only works with supported smart garages.
- Even if none of these options are available (some items aren't eligible for two-day shipping), you'll still be guaranteed free shipping with a standard 4 to 5-day delivery wait.
- Delayed shipping options. If you're buying something on Amazon ahead of its release, don't need your new item right away, or simply want to condense all your orders into one delivery, Amazon has you covered.
- Release-date delivery ensures you'll get your new movie, video game, book, or anything else you preorder on the day it releases, so you don't have to worry about confusing shipping options.
- No-rush delivery lets you delay your package until a more convenient time, and you can even earn rewards toward your future purchases for using this option.
- Amazon Day delivery lets you choose a specific day for delivery and then adds all your orders throughout that week to that shipment so you get it all at once
- Exclusive deals and early access. Amazon Prime nets you a ton of extra savings on millions of items every year in addition to the guaranteed free shipping, and those savings come in many different forms.
- Amazon Prime Day is a massive 2-day sales event with some of the most aggressive deals and discounts of the year, and the best of the bunch are exclusive to Amazon Prime members.
- Even when it's not Amazon Prime Day, there are still countless exclusive deals for Amazon Prime members that guarantee you the very best price.
- Lightning Deals are very limited-time sales that can disappear in just a few hours and often have extremely limited stock, and Amazon Prime members get 30 minutes of early access.
- Multimedia streaming benefits. Amazon Prime is an all-in-one subscription that also includes access to a ton of streaming and digital platforms.
- Amazon Prime Video grants you access to thousands of movies and TV shows from across different publishers and platforms, with on-demand streaming, live sports, and optional add-on subscriptions for even more content.
- Amazon Music is also included in Amazon Prime with ad-free music shuffling and all the top podcasts in one place, and you can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited and gain endless access to over 100 million songs for an additional $9.99 a month.
- Amazon Photos gives users unlimited HD cloud storage for all of their photos and 5GB of storage for videos, making ordering photo prints directly from Amazon easy.
- Amazon Prime Gaming is directly tied into the Twitch streaming platform, giving you exclusive perks, free video games, a free Twitch channel subscription, and more.
- Amazon Prime Reading lets you access a rotating catalog of thousands of ebooks, audiobooks, comics, and magazines through the Kindle app (or your Kindle, obviously), and also includes Amazon First Read for early access to a carefully curated monthly roster of books a month before they're published.
- Amazon Prime Visa and Prime Store Card. Amazon Prime members get exclusive benefits with Amazon's Visa credit card or store-specific credit card, including 5% cash back on all Amazon.com purchases (and more with Visa), 5-15% cash back on specific items throughout the year, at least 1% on all other purchases (with Visa), and other exclusive perks. There's also the Amazon Prime Secured Card that earns you 2% cash back on Amazon.com purchases and is aimed at people looking to build their credit for the first time.
- And other benefits. This is already a long list, and it's still not finished. Amazon Prime includes even more than this, and some of these benefits will absolutely catch you off guard.
- Amazon Prime is obviously focused on Amazon.com shopping, but you also get exclusive benefits at other retailers, like free standard shipping at Woot!, free two-day shipping at shopbob.com, free expedited shipping at Zappos, and more.
- Grubhub+ is included with Amazon Prime, letting you waive food delivery fees and enjoy exclusive discounts with thousands of restaurants.
- In select areas, Amazon Prime also gives members exclusive access to unlimited free grocery delivery for an additional $9.99 a month.
- Amazon Prime strangely includes a ton of medical and prescription perks, too, including RxPass to get all your prescriptions for just an additional $5 a month, free shipping and exclusive savings with Amazon Pharmacy, discounts on prescriptions at over 60,000 pharmacies, and One Medical for everyday medical support (an additional $9 a month for you and $6 a month more for each additional family member after that)
- Finally, Amazon Prime Fuel Savings can save you 10¢ per gallon at over 7,000 participating gas stations.
That's a very long list of benefits when Amazon Prime is only $14.99/month at Amazon, making this subscription a no-brainer for anyone who regularly uses Amazon's services. Speaking of costs, let's tackle what Amazon Prime tiers you can choose from and how much you'll have to pay.
Amazon Prime membership tiers and costs
You can subscribe to Amazon Prime for free with a 30-day trial, but depending on your perspective, there are up to four different tiers, depending on your perspective. Fortunately, all four tiers are almost identical in terms of benefits and only differ in terms of cost and eligibility.
• Amazon Prime for free w/ 30-day trial or $14.99/month or $139/year — All the benefits, all the time
• Amazon Prime for Young Adults for $7.49/month — Full Prime for students and young adults, and some exclusive bonuses
• Amazon Prime Access for $6.99/month — The complete Prime experience for income-verified customers
First, you have Amazon Prime for $14.99/month, the standard tier that includes all the benefits listed in the above section. Everyone also gets a 30-day trial to test the waters with Amazon Prime. There's also Amazon Prime Annual for $139/year, which saves you around $41 a year versus paying for the monthly subscription.
Next, you have Amazon Prime for Young Adults for $7.49/month. Half-price sounds excellent, but this tier of Amazon Prime is exclusive to adults between the ages of 18-24 and students that can prove their school enrollment. The benefits are identical to Amazon Prime, but students and young adults also get exclusive perks such as 10% off flights and hotels with Student Universe, a 3-month trial for Calm (soothing sounds to help you study) followed by a heavily discounted $8.99/year subscription (down from $69.99/year), a 1-month trial for homework and tutoring help from Course Hero, and $5 off your first purchase from Amazon Warehouse.
Finally, there's Amazon Prime Access for $6.99/month, exclusive to income-verified customers on government assistance such as Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), SSI (Social Security income), and more. To enroll, you'll have to prove your assisted income by submitting the relevant documents, but in all other ways, this tier is identical to Amazon Prime and boasts all the same benefits.
Of course, some optional add-ons can be attached to your Amazon Prime subscription. Amazon Prime Video Channels add-ons give you expanded access to more movies and TV shows, with the cost dependent on the channel you add. Unlimited free grocery deliveries through Amazon cost $9.99/month. An upgraded Amazon Music Unlimited subscription with unrestricted music listening costs $9.99/month. RxPass for more affordable prescriptions and prescription deliveries costs $5/month, and One Medical for everyday live medical support costs $9/month for you and $6/month for each additional family member after that.
Amazon Prime Day and exclusive deals
One of the single biggest selling points for an Amazon Prime membership is exclusive access to the best Amazon Prime Day deals. For the uninitiated, Amazon Prime Day is an annual (or bi-annual) two-day sales event during which Amazon discounts hundreds of thousands of items across its catalog.
Keep an eye on our Windows Central deals page for a carefully curated list of the best prices on our favorite products. You don't have to mindlessly scroll through Amazon or other retailers to find the greatest deals on personal tech and tech accessories, video games and gaming hardware, and more.
Many of these discounts are available to all Amazon shoppers, but the most aggressive price cuts require an Amazon Prime membership. Prime members also get 30-minute early access to Amazon's Lightning Deals, which are incredibly steep discounts on specific products that only last a few hours. You can check out our Amazon Prime Day FAQ for more information. Amazon Prime Day historically happens in mid-July and (sometimes) returns in mid-October. While Prime Day does focus on Amazon (and your Prime membership benefits), many other retailers like Best Buy and Walmart usually participate in "anti-Prime Day" events during which they also host their own storewide sales, often even price matching with Amazon.
Finally, Amazon has its newer "Big Deal Days" events that happen occasionally, and while these events don't share a name with Prime Day and tend to focus a little more on non-Prime exclusive deals, Amazon Prime members still get the best prices and shipping options. You can also consider the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend another Amazon Prime Day, as Amazon once again offers exclusive deals and discounts to Prime members on top of the usual sales spread. Even when no event occurs, there are almost always lucrative, exclusive deals for Amazon Prime members.
You can peruse the current list of exclusive and early-access Amazon Prime deals on Amazon.com. You can also keep an eye on our own Windows Central deals page — we're always hunting for the best deals on tech, video games, accessories, and more from all the major retailers, which often include Amazon.
How to sign up for an Amazon Prime membership
This probably won't be surprising, but Amazon makes it very easy to sign up for a Prime subscription. After all, Amazon Prime is a massive source of revenue for the company, so it makes sense that Amazon would take every opportunity to remind you of its benefits, including any time you purchase an item that could benefit from an exclusive Prime discount or fast and free shipping.
If you're interested in signing up, you first have to sign into your Amazon account on Amazon.com. If you don't already have an account, you can create your free Amazon account on Amazon.com with your name, email address, or phone number, and a secure password (you can set up two-factor authentication later for added security). Next, you can head to your Amazon account homepage on Amazon.com to access all of your account settings, where you can add your preferred address, a default payment option (which you'll need to sign up for Amazon Prime), and more.
Once you're signed in or your new account is set up the way you want, you can sign up for Amazon Prime on Amazon.com, starting with your free 30-day trial (if you haven't already used it). You'll still need a default payment option even for the 30-day trial, but you can cancel at any time to avoid that first monthly or annual charge (depending on the tier you choose).
If you're a student between the ages of 18 and 24 or are receiving some kind of income-verified assistance, you may be able to massively lower the cost of your Amazon Prime membership. Check the section on all the tiers and the eligibility requirements above.
How to cancel your Amazon Prime membership
You may be worried (rightfully so, considering some companies) that Amazon may make it frustratingly difficult to cancel your Amazon Prime membership once you sign up, but the cancellation process is, fortunately, quite simple.
Once again, be sure to sign into your Amazon account on Amazon.com. From here, you can head to your Amazon account homepage on Amazon.com and find the "Prime" section (it should be the tile in the uppermost right-hand corner). Next, find the "Update, cancel, and more" button and follow the on-screen instructions to cancel your Amazon Prime membership. You can also skip some steps and immediately cancel your Amazon Prime membership on Amazon.com with Amazon's helpful support link. You should have to confirm your intent to unsubscribe three times before your Prime membership is properly canceled.
There are some exceptions here. If you get your Amazon Prime membership through another company's service (for example, your cellular network provider), you may have to contact that company to handle the cancellation of your Prime subscription. If you signed up for Amazon Prime on your Android device through the Amazon mobile app, Amazon Prime Video mobile app, or Google Play Store, you must cancel your subscription through the Google Play Store's built-in subscription management services.
Finally, you may be curious about refunds. If you haven't used any of your Amazon Prime member benefits, you should be eligible for a full refund of your current membership period. However, active Prime members who have canceled their subscription will instead retain all their benefits until the end of the current membership period. At that point, Amazon will not charge you for the next period, and your membership will officially end.
Amazon Prime memberships FAQ
When is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day doesn't occur at the same time each year, so it's impossible to tell you exactly what days it'll fall on. However, Amazon does tend to stick to the same general time frames, so we can make an educated guess. Amazon Prime Day is most likely to happen sometime in mid-July (Prime Day 2024 was July 16-17), and if there is a second Prime Day event, it's most likely to happen sometime in mid-October (this year, it was Oct. 8-9).
I'll update this section once Amazon confirms the next Amazon Prime Day.
Do I need Amazon Prime for free shipping?
You do not need an Amazon Prime membership to enjoy free shipping on Amazon. Millions of items are eligible for free standard shipping, but some caveats exist. While Amazon Prime offers free two-day, one-day, and even same-day delivery, the free standard shipping for non-Prime members is 4-8 days. Also, you have to meet a minimum order threshold to qualify for free standard shipping.
Right now, the minimum cost required for free shipping is $35 worth of products in your cart. The items in question also have to support free shipping, which you can find out near the top of the product's item page.
What is Amazon's return policy?
Amazon's default return policy is 30 days from the moment of purchase, which is where most items will fall. However, Amazon is a complicated retailer in that it sells a vast variety of items, and many of those items are sold by third-party sellers. Some items aren't eligible for a return (like perishable goods), and others may fall under a different return policy depending on the seller.
Like many retailers, Amazon also adopts a different return policy during the holidays to accommodate many products being purchased as gifts ahead of time. To this effect, any items purchased between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024, and fall under Amazon's return policy, are eligible for an extended return period lasting until Jan. 31, 2025 (Apple-branded products can be returned until Jan. 15).
To return a product for a full refund or receive a replacement in the case of damaged goods, you'll want to head to the Amazon Returns Center on Amazon.com while signed into your Amazon account. You'll have to disclose your reason for requesting a refund or replacement, and when returning an item from a third-party Amazon seller, you'll need to submit a return request that the seller will review.
Once your return is accepted, you'll be provided with a return label to ship the product back to Amazon. Be sure to carefully separate products and their return labels if you're returning multiple items, reset and wipe the data off all electronic devices you're returning, and ship the product or products back to Amazon in a timely fashion to ensure your refund isn't rescinded or replacement item canceled.
For more information, you can peruse the Amazon returns help section on Amazon.com.
Does Amazon price match with competitors?
Many retailers, such as Best Buy, offer price matching with their largest competitors to guarantee the best price (and encourage you to keep shopping with them). However, Amazon does not have a price match guarantee. While unfortunate, Amazon is a complex retailer with a massive third-party seller market, so it does make sense.
That being said, Amazon typically offers pretty competitive pricing on products when other retailers discount them. You may find that a product's Amazon listing adjusts its pricing shortly after a sale starts elsewhere. If you purchase a product from Amazon and its price falls further shortly after, Amazon has been known to reimburse the difference in some cases, but it's not guaranteed.
Where can I find all the Amazon Prime deals?
If you're already an Amazon Prime member (or simply want to see what kind of discounts you can expect after subscribing), you can find all the exclusive or early access Amazon Prime deals on Amazon.com. There are millions of items being sold on Amazon, though, so this section is always a confusing morass of products and categories that can be overwhelming to navigate, so keep that in mind when browsing.
If you're a fan of personal tech and tech accessories, video games and gaming hardware, and interesting software, you can also follow the Windows Central deals page.
We carefully select the best deals on products we actually use (and often have extensively tested and reviewed) and ensure you're getting the lowest possible price. That often means shopping at Amazon (and sometimes taking advantage of your Amazon Prime membership), but we go where you can find the greatest discounts. That means highlighting deals from retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Newegg, or whichever retailer is offering the best deal, even if it's not Amazon.
How do I cancel my Amazon Prime membership?
You can easily cancel your Amazon Prime membership on Amazon.com if you subscribed through Amazon, and you can also find the same process on your Amazon account homepage on Amazon.com. If you subscribed to Amazon Prime through a different company (cellular network providers like T-Mobile or Verizon are a common example), you may have to cancel through that company instead. If you subscribed on your Android device with the Amazon or Amazon Prime Video mobile apps, you must manage your subscription through the Google Play Store.
If you're an active Amazon Prime user, your benefits will continue until the end of your current membership period, even after you officially cancel. If you haven't used any of your benefits, you may be eligible for a full refund for your current membership period.
Where can I learn more about Amazon Prime?
I did my best to make this a one-stop shop for all your Amazon Prime needs and questions, but if you still have unanswered queries you can dive into the nitty gritty details of Amazon's support with the Amazon Prime help page on Amazon.com.
