Roger Fingas
Putting it into more direct competition with services like Netflix and Hulu, Amazon on Monday introduced standalone Prime Video subscriptions in the U.S., as well as a monthly option for full-scale Prime service.
The Prime Video plan is available for $8.99 per month. This includes all shows and movies, as well as HD, UHD (4K), and HDR video quality options. The only drawback is that on an annual basis, the plan is actually more expensive than a regular Prime subscription, which costs $99 per year.
Prime Video is nevertheless cheaper than something like Netflix, which recently raised the price of its standard plan (with HD) to $9.99 per month for new users.
People who want access to the full benefits of Prime — including music, books, and improved shipping — can now choose to pay $10.99 per month. The amount is the same as Amazon began offering to Sprint customers in March.
The company actually tested the idea of a $7.99 monthly plan in 2012, but almost immediately stopped it for reasons unknown. At the time, a normal Prime plan was still just $79, making for an annual price gap of about $17. The new monthly rate creates a $33 gap, even with a higher regular Prime fee.
Separate Prime Video subscriptions are also available in the U.K., Germany, and Japan, but the U.S. is both Amazon's home market and its largest.
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16 Comments
Still waiting on that ATV app....
Maybe they'll launch an Apple TV app now.
I find myself using mostly Hulu for TV shows, Netflix for movies, and Amazon for...well...very little. Downton Abbey is the only show I watched that wasn't on Hulu or Netflix.
This may have been the biggest factor holding back an AppleTV App...that there was no singular subscription for the video service. Well, now there is. Should be just a matter of time now.
I'd like to see them debut this App, with Siri support. Siri is big for driving new subscriptions on AppleTV. I don't know what Amazon has and I'm not subscribing to find out...but if it starts coming up as a viable option in Siri search results, you can be sure I will be subscribing then.