Amazon is making a big move to challenge Netflix in the television streaming universe.
The online retailer is now offering monthly subscriptions for Amazon Prime, at the price of $10.99 a month, according to CNN. Previously, Amazon Prime was only available as an annual subscription at $99.
And there’s more: Amazon Video is now available as a standalone service, and that’s also available by monthly subscription, at $8.99 a month. Before this, Amazon Video (TV and movies) was only available as part of the Prime package.
Now, if you do the math, a full year of Amazon Prime by the monthly rate ($10.99) would come out to $131.88. A full year of Amazon Video at the monthly rate ($8.99) would be $107.88.
So, if you plan on taking advantage of the perks — free two-day shipping, Amazon Video, music library, etc — featured in Amazon Prime for a full year, you may be better off sticking with the $99 annual option that remains available. But, the monthly subscriptions offer nice options for people that don’t want to make that full-year commitment.
There’s also the idea of just subscribing to Prime for the free two-day shipping over the holidays, for example, if you plan on ordering many items then. Or maybe you want to just binge a few shows on Amazon Video with the monthly option, rather than having to spend $99 for a full year of the Prime bundle.
The Amazon Video $8.99 standalone service is becoming a thing just a couple weeks in advance of Netflix increasing their monthly subscription price from $7.99 to $9.99 for 17 million grandfathered subscribers.
