Kindle Unlimited in the test: Amazon’s book flat rate is that good

Amazon started out as a mail order company and is now expanding as a service provider. In the hardware sector, there is a wide selection of inexpensive devices such as Fire tablets, Echo speakers and Kindle readers. With the right services such as Amazon Music or the audio book service Audible, these are significantly upgraded to become serious competition for independent services such as Spotify and Co.

There is also a corresponding offer for fans of eBooks or digital magazines. Here, for example, Amazon offers Prime Reading specifically for Prime customers. The reading offer is included in the Amazon Prime subscription and offers access to hundreds of e-books, e-magazines and more.

There is significantly more choice in the full reading range of Kindle Unlimited. The paid service offers access to countless eBooks and audio books – but it contains significantly more books than audio content.

We took a closer look at the Kindle Unlimited offering and compared it with other reading flat rates. You can read how Kindle Unlimited performs in the test report below.

A notice: As a new customer, you can test Kindle Unlimited for free for 30 days. There are also regular offers where you can, for example, temporarily get the service cheaper or try it out for free for a longer period of time.

1. This is how Kindle Unlimited works

2. Selection

3. Operation and availability

4. Prices and terms

5. Conclusion

This is how Kindle Unlimited works

For a fixed monthly price, Kindle Unlimited subscribers have access to a selection of millions of e-books on Amazon’s e-readers or via the app (Amazon does not specify the exact number) as well as selected e-magazines that can be read at no extra charge. Before reading, however, books must first be borrowed – like in a library, only digitally.

At the same time, you can borrow up to ten books virtually. If you want to read more books, you must return previously borrowed copies digitally. Some available books include an audio book that can be borrowed free of charge alongside the e-book version. Amazon determines which books are available to borrow.

This sets Kindle Unlimited apart from Prime Reading in that the latter service includes a catalog of only a few hundred titles and is therefore significantly less extensive than Kindle Unlimited.

While Audible sells many millions of audio books, only a few thousand Kindle Unlimited titles contain an audio book – here too, the service differs from its own competition. But what does Kindle Unlimited have to offer in terms of content?

Selection

Despite all the differentiation from other offers: Kindle Unlimited can only be convincing if the offer is extensive enough – and this is a major problem with the service. The majority of the books included in the subscription are relatively unknown indie publications and hardly any well-known bestsellers.

While specialist literature is completely missing, Amazon covers novels from a wide range of sub-genres and everyday guides with corresponding indie e-books. While a substantial proportion of the books mentioned are available in German, the majority of available e-books appear to be listed only in English.

A comparison of the catalog with the top novels on the Spiegel bestseller list shows that none of these titles are available to subscribers. An exception to the catalog, which is otherwise characterized by unknown titles, which is widely advertised by Amazon, can be found in the Harry Potter series, which is available entirely in German and English.

The number of titles that are also included in audio form in the subscription is even smaller: according to Amazon, the over 5,000 titles available in relation to the unlimited selection are negligible overall. Here you are much better served with Audible.

The included eMagazines are a nice addition. Among other things, you will find well-known magazines from the areas of health and fitness, home and garden, cooking, entertainment and technology.

The selection is manageable and not comparable to magazine flat rates like Readly. However, the offering is quite diverse and there is something for everyone. The majority of the magazines are German editions, but there are also some in English.

Overall, the Kindle Unlimited subscription is unsuitable if you want to read a specific book – the likelihood that a title you are looking for is not available is far too great to justify the subscription.

Only those who like to be inspired by the book catalog and are generally open to indie publications and English titles can benefit from this. Magazines and audio books are a nice extra, but should be neglected when deciding on a subscription.

Operation and availability

Amazon’s infrastructure, into which Kindle Unlimited is seamlessly integrated, is both a blessing and a curse. Anyone who knows Amazon also knows the user interface of the Kindle Unlimited library – which is why borrowing and returning books usually works quickly. If you are not familiar with Amazon operations, it will take some time to find everything.

However, the mail order company has made improvements in terms of operation. In our 2021 test period, Kindle Unlimited e-books and regular purchase e-books were still mixed, similar to Prime Video. This made finding it unnecessarily complicated. Content from Kindle Unlimited can now be viewed much more easily.

eBooks, eMagazines and audio books can be accessed specifically using a corresponding button on the website or in the app. The content is divided into categories such as “Recommendations”, “eBooks with audiobooks” or genres. This makes searching for interesting books, magazines or audio books easier.

The cross-device availability of the book flat rate should also be positively highlighted: This extends to Amazon’s numerous in-house Kindle devices, but also to Kindle apps for all common computers and mobile devices.

Accessing content borrowed via subscription does not require a separate app, but can simply be accessed via the regular Kindle app. If a borrowed book contains an audio book, it can be accessed directly via the Audible app. This means that the availability of the offer across devices is very good.

Amazon has also been developing the Kindle app for many years, so it appears to be very sophisticated and enables an extremely smooth reading experience.

Prices and terms

A Kindle Unlimited subscription can be taken out for 11.75 euros per month. There is a regular one-month test period available to you, during which you can try out the offer at no cost. If you are in the payment model, cancellation is possible on a monthly basis. Once your subscription has expired, you will no longer be able to access borrowed content.

Amazon Kindle Unlimited

Editorial rating 6.5 Reader Ratings

270 reviews

Price-performance ratio

6.0

Transparency note: We used a one-month trial subscription for our test.

Amazon Kindle Unlimited: The best alternatives

Don’t agree? Are you looking for suitable alternatives? Below you will find the best Amazon Kindle Unlimited alternatives.

We also recommend that you take a look at our book and magazine flat rate best lists. You can find comparable products, for example, in the best list “Endless reading pleasure: e-book and magazine flat rates in comparison”

Amazon Kindle Unlimited: data sheet

Here you can find the technical data for Amazon Kindle Unlimited. You can easily compare size, weight and other properties with other products.

Books	✔ Yes
Magazines	✔ Yes
Newspapers	✘ No
Monthly price	9.99 euros
Free trial period	30 days

View all technical data❯