Amazon will show ads in Prime Video unless you pay more

Amazon Prime membership includes Prime Video membership, which allows you to watch content on the video streaming platform without any advertisements at no additional cost. Well, there’s going to be a significant change to that arrangement from the next month where you will be able to access Prime Video with Amazon Prime but not without ads.

Amazon has sent an e-mail to people in the US announcing that the company will start showing ads on Prime Video from January 29, 2024. The company says that if people don’t want to see advertisements on the platform, they’ll have to pay $2.99 per month in addition to what they are paying monthly or yearly for the Amazon Prime membership.

Pre-orders for Prime Video ad-free option are now open

Amazon has also opened pre-orders for the $2.99/month option that will remove ads from Prime Video. If you pre-order the option,  Amazon will charge you when the option goes live. The company, however, hasn’t clarified what benefits will people get if they pre-order the option rather than choosing it at a later period. At the moment, the Amazon Prime membership costs $14.99/month or $139/year. If you just want Prime Video, you will have to pay $8.99/month. There’s no annual billing plan for the streaming subscription.

Here’s what the e-mail said: “We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership.”