Amazon Prime stays at $99 annual rates with monthly membership

Amazon raise the journal rate for its Prime service by 18% on Friday, from $10.99 to $12.99. The yearly Prime membership stays at $99. 

The price of Amazon’s journal Prime program for student is also growing 18%, from $5.49 to $6.49. It is offered to students enroll in a 2- or 4 year college. Students also get a 6-month free test.

Amazon Video comes integrated in both the yearly and monthly membership. The a la carte price for those who are not Prime members will stay the same, at $8.99 per month.

The most new Prime subscription hike came in 2014 when the yearly membership go from $79 to $99.

Amazon give no exact reason for the price increase, beyond a statement that it continue in its "unwavering" certainty that Prime is the best value in the record of shopping.

Forrester analyst Brendan Witcher said "when compared to similar contributions in the market, the $10.99 monthly Prime offering was priced too low." Cobbling mutually a similar offering counting delivery and free Cloud storage would cost far more, he said.

Not raise the price for yearly subscribers is more about create loyalty, he said. "Leaving the annual rate as is fits with their strategy to promote customers to see Amazon as a brand that will be part of their habitual lives, rather than a monthly purchase consideration."

Prime membership is increasing, though Amazon itself will only say that it has "millions" of customers.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners expected in October that Amazon had 90 million Prime members. They are very lucrative for the company because free shipping and the other perks that come with membership mean Prime members spend more on the platform. Last year CIRP probable that about 19% of Prime members pay monthly. 

In the recent month, CIRP out an study that found that Prime members pay out $1,300 on average each year, compared with $700 for non-Prime customers.