Amazon Prime Video is Surprisingly Important!

Amazon customers join Amazon Prime principally for the shipping benefits. The initial calculation is that free, fast shipping on most orders justifies the $140 per year fee.

Amazon touts a long list of other Prime member benefits added over the past 20 years. Among these, Amazon Prime streaming video is perhaps most established, with Emmy Awards and NFL broadcast rights to prove it. How do Prime members use Amazon Prime video, and what can we tell about its role in justifying their membership expense?

Most Prime members watch Amazon streaming video regularly. CIRP survey data indicates that in 2024 61% of Prime members watched Amazon Prime streaming video at least weekly, while only 11% had never used it. Importantly, streaming video seems to help keep Prime members happy. We can start to see this by analyzing how Prime Video use changes with longer Prime membership. Specifically, in their first year of a membership, 82% of members at least try Amazon Prime Video (Chart 1). This increases to 90% for Amazon Prime members who have subscribed for three or more years.