New terms of use: Will Amazon Prime become more expensive?

Since the end of last week (June 10, 2022), Amazon has been informing its Prime users in Germany about the new “Amazon Prime Conditions of Participation”. In the notification email from the sender “[email protected]” and with the subject “We are updating our Amazon Prime Terms of Participation” to Prime users, Amazon writes, among other things: “We have updated the Amazon Prime Terms of Participation to provide even more detailed information Let us know how and when we may make changes to these Terms, our Prime service, or the Prime membership terms.”

The changes primarily affect Sections 5.1 to 5.3 – this is particularly about the membership fee for Prime membership. The updated Terms, which you can read here, are effective July 11, 2022 and will apply to Prime Membership from that date.

In the notification email, Amazon links to a page that specifically lists the changes compared to the previous terms of use. One of the newly inserted sentences reads:

”

We are entitled to adjust the membership fee at our reasonable discretion and based on factually justified and objective criteria.

”

And further: ”

An increase in the membership fee can be considered and a reduction in the membership fee must be made in order to pass on the cost increases and/or cost savings that we incur that are based on external circumstances beyond our control and that affect the specific costs of the Prime service in your country , such as changes in the law, official orders, general price changes for the necessary hardware and/or software, production and licensing, other general costs such as the costs of external service providers, wage increases and/or changes in taxes and fees and/or general and significant changes in costs of inflation or deflation. Any change in membership fee will only be made to the extent that our own costs and/or taxes and/or duties are reduced or increased overall.

”

This is how it goes

Amazon promises to notify Prime customers at least 30 days before a price increase goes into effect. The customer can then cancel in good time before the price increase comes into effect if he does not want to agree to it.

You can reject the changes by canceling your Prime membership free of charge within 30 days of receiving this e-mail, e.g. via your member account or via Amazon customer service. After you cancel, your Prime membership will continue to run until the end of the current payment period under the previous terms.

However, in our opinion there is no reason for immediate termination. You can calmly await the future development of Prime prices. In this case, you do not have to do anything and the new terms of use then came into effect from 11.7. in force.

Evidence: Amazon Prime will soon be more expensive

In the notification email and in the new terms of use for Prime published online, Amazon says nothing about a specifically planned price increase for Prime membership. However, the IT news magazine Golem points to a possible parallel: On April 21, 2022, Amazon changed the terms of use for Amazon Music, with the main focus being on upcoming price increases. Then, on May 23, 2022, Amazon actually increased the prices for Amazon Music Unlimited – two days after the new Terms of Service went into effect. You can read more about this here: Amazon Music Unlimited is becoming more expensive – for these users.

Now one can speculate: The new terms of use for Amazon Prime will come into force on July 11, 2022. Will Amazon raise Prime prices on July 13, 2022?

A price increase for German Prime customers is also obvious because Amazon already significantly increased Prime prices in the USA in February 2022

: Amazon Prime is becoming more expensive – initially only in the USA.

PC-WELT asked Amazon about:

Is Amazon planning a price increase for Prime for July 2022? Especially since the prime prices in the USA were only recently increased.

An Amazon spokesperson replied: “We have updated the Amazon Prime Terms of Participation to provide more details on how and when we may make changes to these Terms, to our Prime service, or to the Prime membership terms.”

Beyond that, we have nothing to announce at this time.” End of quote

This is how much Prime currently costs

In Germany, Amazon Prime costs EUR 7.99 per month or EUR 69 per year.

You can try Amazon Prime for free for 30 days.

Amazon last increased prices in Germany in 2017. At that time from 49 to 69 euros for the annual subscription.