It’s been a year and half since Amazon introduced ads on Prime Video, forcing commercials on anyone who refused to sign up for the ad-free add-on. When ads debuted, Amazon told viewers that they would only see 2 to 3.5 minutes of ads per hour, but Adweek reports that the streamer has quietly doubled its ad load in recent months.
How many ads are on Prime Video?
Adweek spoke to six ad buyers and reviewed documents which revealed that Prime Video now shows between 4 and 6 minutes of ads every hour. The publication even saw an email from an Amazon representative to an ad buyer containing the following line: “Prime Video ad load has gradually increased to four to six minutes per hour.”
Notably, Amazon never directly informed subscribers of the ad increase. Kelly Day, VP of Prime Video International, did tell the Financial Times late last year that Prime Video’s ad load was set to “ramp up a little bit more into 2025,” but nothing specific was announced.
Amazon shared the following statement with Ars Technica when asked about Day’s comments, all but confirming more ads were coming: “We have not changed our plans to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers and evaluate advertising volumes to help ensure we’re delivering a great customer experience.”
How we got here
While most streamer’s offer distinct ad-supported and ad-free tiers, Prime Video took another route. One day in 2024, everyone paying for Amazon Prime woke up with ads on Prime Video. The only way to remove them was to “upgrade to Prime Video Ad Free” for an additional $2.99 per month on top of the $139 annual Amazon Prime membership fee.
Initially, Amazon only served a few ads per hour so as not to scare off too many subscribers. Its strategy was a success, and churn was minimal. But now that subscribers were accustomed to ads, they probably wouldn’t mind one or two more every hour, right?
Prime Video once had among the lightest ad loads of any streamer. Now, Doug Paladino of the ad agency PMG tells Adweek that Prime Video is “firmly in that middle tier.”
