How to Effectively Lower the Cost of Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime membership (this article covers Amazon Japan) comes in two flavors: a monthly plan and an annual plan. Simply choosing the annual plan cuts your effective monthly cost substantially, so if you intend to keep the membership, the annual plan is the clear winner.
Students can do even better: Prime Student costs half the regular price, and anyone eligible should take full advantage. The gap between the annual and monthly plans is far from trivial over a year, so picking the right plan is the first step in saving. If you live with family, look into the household member benefits too, which push the per-person cost down even further.
Saving on Shipping with Delivery Benefits
Prime members get free expedited and scheduled delivery. Non-members pay shipping on orders below a certain amount, so just a few orders a month can save enough in shipping fees to cover the membership.
- Bulk ordering: Order household staples and consumables together on a regular cycle
- Subscribe & Save: Set up recurring deliveries of eligible items for up to 15% off
- Lightning deals: Shop member-early access sales for extra discounts
Subscribe & Save in particular is built so the discount rate rises when you group 3 or more subscriptions. Learn your household's consumption cycle and register items in batches for maximum efficiency.
Amazon runs time-limited deals every day, and Prime members get in 30 minutes early. Make checking them a habit and you will stumble onto genuine bargains from time to time.
Getting the Most from Subscribe & Save
Subscribe & Save is Amazon Prime's under-appreciated savings engine. Put eligible items on a recurring schedule and you get 5 to 15% off the regular price. Delivery frequency is adjustable anywhere from 1 to 6 months, and skipping or canceling is painless whenever you do not need a shipment.
The trick to maximizing the discount is landing 3 or more subscriptions on the same delivery date, which lifts the discount to its 15% ceiling. Register predictable consumables like detergent, tissues, and bottled water, and you get savings and never-run-out convenience in one move.
Use Every Benefit and Earn Back the Fee
Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading, and Amazon Photos are all included at no extra charge. Compare the membership fee with what those services would cost individually, and Prime's value for money is hard to argue with.
Amazon Photos' unlimited photo storage is a particularly overlooked saver: auto-back up your phone's photos and you may never need a paid cloud storage plan just because your device filled up.
Prime Reading offers a rotating selection of magazines and business books to read free, handy for catching up during the commute. Even one book a month easily justifies itself against retail book prices. Consciously working every benefit into your routine is how you extract more value than the fee. Knowing these features exist is half the difference in what you get out of the membership.
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