Amazon Prime gets a price bump to $99 a year

Nine years after it launched, Amazon Prime is getting an inevitable price increase.

Amazon announced today that Prime will now cost $99 per year in the U.S., a slight bump from the previous $79 a year price.

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Prime gives Amazon customers free two-day shipping, inexpensive one-day and Saturday shipping, free Kindle e-book loans, and access to select titles from Amazon’s streaming video library. Given the number of benefits Prime has added over the years, it was only a matter of time before Amazon raised the price.

And now that it’s charging customers more, Amazon should be able to add even more benefits to Prime. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some sort of Spotify-competing music service that takes advantage of Amazon’s music library, for example.

At $20 more a year, Prime is still a good deal for what you get. If you order enough from Amazon, it takes the headache out of long ship times. It’s also incredibly useful when you need something delivered by the next day.

Amazon is also bumping the student Prime pricing to $49 a year, up from $39.