If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you may already be enjoying some of the perks that come with the $139 per year membership, like fast shipping, video streaming and free e-books, magazines and audiobooks. But what about music options — do you need a Prime membership to stream music from Amazon?
Read on to learn more about Amazon Music Prime and how it compares to other music streaming services.
What is Amazon Music Prime?
Amazon Music Prime offers unlimited music streaming for Prime members. Subscribers get shuffle-only streaming (songs in random order) for any artist, album or playlist ad-free in the Amazon Prime music catalog. The platform also offers some popular podcasts without ads.
What are the features of Amazon Music Prime?
Amazon Music Prime has a library of more than 100 million songs, dozens of music stations to choose from, a large selection of podcasts and thousands of playlists. To listen, you can open Amazon Music Player in a computer browser window or download a desktop app, download a mobile app or use supported devices like Fire TV or Alexa (some devices play music only, not podcasts). Your ability to skip a song is limited, and offline listening is available only for the included All-Access Playlists.
If listening to an All-Access Playlist with Amazon Music Prime, you can skip songs, select one to listen to on-demand and download playlists for offline listening.
Is Amazon Music free with Prime?
Shuffle-play music streaming is free with a Prime membership. But if you want on-demand music, you’ll have to upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited, which starts at $9.99 per month or $99 annually. Or, if you’re not a Prime member, Unlimited costs $10.99 monthly.
Amazon Music Unlimited has the same features as Amazon Music Prime, but with additional perks like the ability to skip songs, listen offline and select individual tracks to listen to on-demand rather than in shuffle mode. Amazon Music Unlimited also includes high-definition audio quality across its music library.
If you’re not so particular about listening to specific songs and like the variety that shuffle-mode offers, Amazon Music Prime may be a viable option. You can also try out Amazon Music Unlimited with a free trial to see if the upgrade is worth it for your listening preferences. The free trial is typically for 30 days, but Amazon currently offers five months free for new subscribers who are Prime members (three months for non-Prime members). After the free period, you’ll automatically be charged $9.99 (Prime members) or $10.99 monthly (non-Prime members) for the individual plan until you cancel.
If you don’t have Prime membership but want to listen for free, you can use Amazon Music Free. You’ll have to put up with ads and less flexibility on playlists, but there are plenty of stations, playlists and podcasts to choose from.
Amazon Music Prime vs. other streaming services
There’s no shortage of music streaming options, so how does Amazon Music Prime measure up to other popular platforms like Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music?
Spotify and YouTube Music both offer free versions that compare with Amazon Music Prime features — typically containing ads and limited options for selecting songs.
Apple Music does not offer a free service, though there are often deals for free trials. At the time of this writing, you can get Apple Music free for six months with the purchase of an eligible Apple product.
If you’re already paying for a Prime membership, taking advantage of Amazon Music Prime may make sense before branching into other streaming services.
For paid subscriptions, Apple Music and YouTube Music provide individual plans for $10.99 per month. The Spotify individual plan costs $11.99 per month, but the higher price comes with 15 hours of audiobook listening time.
The paid plans from these competitors, with more robust features like ad-free listening, high-quality sound and the ability to listen offline, are most similar to Amazon Prime Unlimited in features and benefits. Amazon Prime Unlimited comes in at the lowest cost per month if you’re a Prime member already, and the $10.99 for non-Prime members is also competitive.
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Budgeting for Amazon Music Prime
Deciding between streaming services requires analyzing features, benefits and costs. One advantage Amazon Music Prime carries over other services is that many consumers are already paying for Prime membership — in fact, it’s expected that in 2024 the number of Prime subscribers will reach more than 180 million.
Eligible college students can also take advantage of discounts with Amazon Prime Student, which brings an annual Prime subscription down to $69 per year, plus a free six-month trial.
Entertainment services like Amazon Music Prime plug into the wants category of a 50/30/20 budget, where 50% of income goes towards needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and extra payments on debt. If you decide to go with a paid music subscription, it may be helpful to review what else you can cut back on in the wants category.
