Credit: Amazon
Heard about Amazon Prime somewhere and not sure where to start?
Here’s a compilation of everything you need to know before you subscribe to Amazon Prime: how much it costs, a breakdown of everything that a monthly Amazon Prime subscription fee gets you, and a step-by-step guide to subscribing to Amazon Prime in Australia.
How do you subscribe to Amazon Prime in Australia?
1. You can sign up for Amazon Prime in Australia by clicking here or pressing the Prime button if you're already on the amazon website.
Credit: Dominic Bayley 2. This will take you to a page that breaks down the benefits of being an Amazon Prime member, listed above and shown below.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG 3. The next step is to hit the big yellow prompt labelled ‘Start Your 30-Day Free Trial’
4. Sign into your Amazon account. If you don’t already have an Amazon account, you’ll need to create one.
5.Once you’ve logged in, you’ll need to add a payment method. If you’re a new Amazon Prime member this card won’t be charged until after your free month expires but you will need to enter something in the interim. Amazon say they accept all major credit and debit cards, including VISA, Mastercard and American Express.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG 6. After adding a payment method, you’ll need to fill in some basic billing details. You don’t need to fill in every box but you will need to enter an address, city, postcode and phone number.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG 7. Finally, you'll need to confirm the details you’ve entered and hit the 'continue' button.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG 8. Congratulations, you are now subscribed to Amazon Prime.
Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG How much does Amazon Prime cost in Australia?
In Australia, the standard Amazon Prime subscription costs AU$6.99/month.
You can also sign up for a year in advance to save money by paying AU$59/year. Doing so slices about AU$24 off the regular cost of a 12-month Amazon Prime subscription. If you’re looking at locking yourself into Amazon Prime for the long haul, a 1-year plan is definitely worth considering. Regardless of which payment plan you go with, new Amazon Prime subscribers also get their first month free.
If you’re looking to get the most out of your money, it might be worth making use of that first month offer to see how much you actually use the services and benefits that your Amazon Prime subscription gets you before you commit to the AU$59 Prime Yearly plan. If you don't end up using the perks and benefits of Amazon Prime that much, you can always cancel your subscription.
You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime here.
What does Amazon Prime include in Australia?
The benefits of Amazon Prime membership can broken out into two categories: perks and products. Never heard of Prime before? Here’s everything you need to know to decide whether or not you should subscribe to Amazon Prime.
Perks
Credit: Amazon Let’s start with the former. To begin with, signing up to Amazon Prime in Australia gets you free two-day domestic delivery on eligible products. Now, this doesn’t apply to every item on Amazon Australia - only a select portion of them. Still, the range of products here is steadily increasing over time and Amazon Australia claim that this speedy delivery option will be possible for about 90% of Australians.
If you desperately need a Kindle or a gaming keyboard on short notice, Amazon Prime’s two-day domestic delivery can be a great perk to have.
Even if it’s not an emergency, Amazon Prime subscribers also get a discount on priority deliveries for both domestic and international orders plus free standard international delivery on eligible orders over AU$49. In practice, the latter works similarly to the free domestic shipping. It only counts items that are marked as Prime and you do have to spend a baseline of AU$50 in a single order for the free shipping to kick in.
Still, it goes a long way towards making shopping on Amazon in Australia that much more appealing and makes it possible for you to take advantage of international deals during events like Prime Day and Black Friday. For more on Prime Day, check out our run-down of everything you need to know about Prime Day and how to get the best deals during the annual online shopping event.
Lastly, when it comes to perks at least, Amazon Prime subscribers also get free release-date delivery on eligible items within metro areas. Assuming you pre-order the eligible book, game, movie or music two days ahead of release and live close to an appropriate Australian city, you’ll be able to get it delivered the day it comes out.
Products
Credit: Dominic Bayley In addition to benefits that make it easier and better to shop online through Amazon, your Prime membership also comes bundled with a half-dozen Amazon products and services.
For most people, the best of these is probably going to be Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon’s streaming service has yet to amass anywhere close to the volume of original content available on Netflix. However, Amazon Prime Video does still have some great original content in the form of shows like Back to the Rafters, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Pursuit of Love and American Gods. For more info on this original content and Amazon Prime Video, check out our Guide To Every Streaming Service in Australia here.
If none of the above strikes your fancy, there’s a decent chance at least one of Amazon Prime’s other goodwill inclusions will.
Readers get access to over a thousand ebooks, comics and more through Prime Reading and musically inclined Amazon Prime subscribers get the benefits of access to Amazon Prime Music - which includes access to over 2-million songs.
There’s also Twitch Prime. This offers several cosmetic and quality-of-life perks when it comes to the regular Twitch streaming experience.
Twitch Prime members also receive free games and in-game loot that include, but are not limited to, downloadable content, special deals, exclusive livestreams and free games like Sam and Max Hit the Road and Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis.
