EXPERTS predict that Amazon Prime subscription costs could rise this year for the first time since 2022.
Prime fees currently come in at £8.99 / $14.99 a month and £95 / $139 for a year.
But based on historic price hike patterns 2026 looks possible.
Nothing has been confirmed by Amazon yet – and we don’t know by how much it’ll be if a jump does materialise.
Since 2014 Amazon has increased Prime fees roughly every four years in the US.
They went up by 20 per cent in 2018, then 17 per cent in 2022.
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The UK has been a bit different due to a few service changes, such as the old streaming service LoveFilm rebranding to Prime Instant Video (now simply Prime Video) and being wrapped into the wider Prime subscription in 2014.
Prime subscriptions did increase on both sides of the pond in 2022, although the timings were a few months apart.
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“No one likes price rises, but this is the general direction of travel for all of our most sought-after services,” Paolo Pescatore, a tech industry expert with PP Foresight told The Sun.
“Amazon Prime offers tremendous value through its bundled offerings.
“Unfortunately, it is not immune to the rising costs of delivering this value.
“Unlike other services, we have not yet seen any moves to raise prices annually.
“The moves to integrate ads into Prime Video mitigated the earlier price rise, forcing people to pay a subscription fee to remove them. This clearly suggests another lever in its arsenal for paying for its service, beyond simply raising prices.
“The year ahead will likely see prices increase for most services.
“If Amazon raises Prime prices in the US, expect the UK to follow quickly.”
Earlier this year, J.P.Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth warned that a Prime hike could be on the way for 2026.
The research notes that such a move would be “consistent with its cadence of raising the price every ~4 years,” reported Fox Business.
Anmuth also suggested that increasing it by $20 in the US could bring the company around a $3billion boost in “incremental annualised Net sales”.
In September, Amazon announced a pay increase for frontline employees, up by 5.9 per cent to £14.30 and by 5.5 per cent to £15.30 per hour depending on location.
It means annual salaries for frontline staff start at a minimum of £29,744.
In October, the firm revealed that around 14,000 roles corporate roles would be cut globally.
The company recently shut down all 19 of its physical Amazon Fresh stores in the UK too.
