Amazon announced it will hold Prime Day 2021 in June, though the exact date is still unconfirmed. That means you have a whole month to prepare for the biggest online sales event of the year.

Prime Day, the e-commerce giant’s marquee event, offers thousands of discounts across top brands and products to Prime members. If you want in on the action, you’ll need to sign up.

Of course, Prime Day discounts aren’t the only benefit to holding a membership. Amazon Prime continuously grows its list of exclusive services and perks.

What started out as a way to get free, unlimited next-day delivery has quickly become an all-encompassing digital service that adds video, music, books, cloud storage and loads more.

Of course, after Prime Day ends, you still get to reap Prime membership benefits through major seasonal sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Read on to find out everything you need to know about Amazon Prime, whether it’s worth signing up, its latest features, and how much Amazon Prime costs. We’re separately keeping track of everything Prime Day here.

How do you get Amazon Prime for free – 30-day free trial

Amazon offers a 30-day trial on nearly all its Prime services (except for Prime Student, where the free trial is for 6 months!). Remember, if you decide you don’t want to pay for a subscription, you’ll need to cancel Amazon Prime before your trial ends.

Below you’ll find quick links to the various Prime free trials available if you just want to try it out. (Plus, here’s how to sign up for the free trial).

Check out our step-by-step guide to signing up for Amazon Prime.

How much does Amazon Prime cost?

Amazon Prime is available with a few different subscription models. The best value is the upfront sum of £79/$119 for the year, which works out at about £6.58/$9.92 per month. Don’t forget to take advantage of the 30-day free trial first, though.

You can also get Amazon Prime on a monthly subscription plan, but it does work out at a higher cost per year. It’s £7.99/$12.99 per month, which is £95.88/$155.88 per year.

The final option is for those looking to subscribe to the Prime Video service without the rest of the perks that come with the full Prime package.

Prime video only

Prime Video on its own costs £5.99/$8.99 per month, but we’d hesitate to recommend this when the yearly option works out at almost the same price and gives you all of the additional features.

You can sign up for any of these subscription options on Amazon’s dedicated page.

Prime for students

There is a separate pricing plan for students too. It works out at half the price of the usual Amazon Prime and there’s a whopping six months free trial available too.

Find out everything you need to know about Prime Student and how to get it here.

What do you get with Amazon Prime? Benefits Explained

We’ve explained how much Prime costs, but if you’re still wondering what you get with Amazon Prime and whether it’s worth it, let’s dig into its benefits to help you decide. Amazon Prime Video and Music Prime might be a couple of services you’re already familiar with, but there are loads more…

Amazon Prime delivery

The core feature of Amazon Prime is delivery. You’ll get unlimited one-day delivery at no extra cost for millions of eligible items. Some addresses are available with same-day delivery, and better yet there’s also Prime Now, which promises delivery within two hours or less.

Amazon also offers a promotional £1 discount to thank customers who chose the no-rush delivery.

Prime Early Access

Prime members get access to lots of deals 30 minutes before the rest of its customers, which can sometimes make the difference between bagging a bargain and missing out completely.

Amazon Fresh

As of 28 July 2020, Amazon Fresh became free to anyone with a Prime membership in the UK. Amazon Fresh offers customers fast, same-day delivery on produce, as well as meat, seafood, snacks, and other essentials with a minimum order value of £15. You can also qualify for free two-hour delivery on orders over £40. Check if Amazon Fresh is available in your postcode. 

The service replaces Amazon Pantry which was the retailer’s original response to online grocery shopping. Amazon discontinued Pantry in the UK on 30 June, 2020. 

Amazon Prime Music

Also included is Prime Music, which offers a huge selection of songs (more than two million) available to stream.

However, if you want access to the complete library of 40 million songs, Amazon’s answer to Spotify is Prime Music Unlimited, which has a separate subscription cost of £9.99/$9.99 per month, but is reduced to £7.99/$7.99. Right now however, Amazon is offering three months of the service for 99p, and four months for 99¢.

Amazon Prime Video

Amazon’s Netflix rival is called Amazon Prime Video, and there you’ll find thousands of films and TV shows, some exclusive, to stream. Better yet, you can download them to watch offline.

We’ve picked out our favorite movies on Amazon Prime here.

Prime Video now also lets you see 20 exclusive Premier League matches per season at no extra cost for its subscribers, which is an indication that Amazon is gearing up to bring even more exclusive content to entice new users.

Amazon Prime Deals

Prime Day is similar to Black Friday where thousands of products are reduced but only for Prime members. See our full guide to Prime Day.

In the US Prime members who use Amazon Wedding List also get 20% off items remaining in their gift registry (though some terms apply). Alternatively, UK couples receive a £50 gift card if guests spend over £750.

Amazon Channels

Prime members also get access to Amazon Channels, which offers 40 TV channels at a small additional cost. We’ve got a full guide to Amazon Channels here.

Twitch Prime

Gamers can get extra benefits through Twitch Prime, which includes free games every month and ad-free viewing on Twitch itself. to see which games are available.

Audible – 2 free Audiobooks

Prime members also benefit from two free audiobooks from Audible. The audiobook service costs £7.99/$7.95 per month separately. Listeners can also keep any of the books they’ve purchased even after they’ve canceled the service.

Amazon’s current offer makes the service free for 3 months. Sign up here.

Kindle Owner’s Lending Library & Prime Reading

Prime members can borrow a book a month from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library at no extra cost, as well as a book from the Kindle First picks. 

You’ll also be able to download and read books, comics, and magazines from the library of more than 1,000 titles available for free with Prime Reading. Until 31 December 2021, Prime members can also get a £5 credit when borrowing a free ebook via Prime Reading.

Books borrowed from the Lending Library can only be read on a Kindle device, but titles from Prime Reading can be accessed from any device. See our full guide to Prime Reading.

Amazon Prime Photos

Prime Photos lets you upload and store unlimited photos in the cloud to keep them safe and accessible from any device.

Amazon Household

Some of these perks aren’t limited to one individual, either. With Amazon Household, you can share features with one other adult member of your household.

Amazon Family

You can also join Amazon Family, which in addition to all of the Prime benefits gets you 20% off nappies subscriptions as well as other exclusive offers and discounts. You’ll have to provide a few details about you and your family in order to qualify, and only one membership is available per household.

Prime Wardrobe

Prime Wardrobe allows customers to try on clothes, shoes, watches, and accessories before buying. You get 7 days to try the items, and you get charged for the items you keep. Here’s more on how it works.