Some Monthly Prime Members Are … Inconsistent

We’ve looked at Amazon Prime from many perspectives. Recently, we analyzed how Prime members pay for their membership, either with a single annual payment or monthly payments. To recap, members can pay either $139 per year or $14.99 per month, so the monthly subscription costs $180 per year or almost 30% more than the annual subscription. 

Does Amazon win or lose with these monthly-pay Prime members?

As it turns out, a measurable percentage of Prime members who pay monthly aren’t completely consistent customers. They stop and restart their membership, as Amazon allows under the program. Some do this for many months, suggesting they have a Prime membership when it suits them, perhaps around holiday shopping.

In the past twelve months, almost one-quarter of monthly-pay Prime members have suspended their membership at some point (Chart 1).

Chart 1: Have You Ever Stopped Your Prime Membership for One Month or Longer? And If So, How Months Were You a Member in the Last Year? (twelve months ending March 2023)