Amazon Music Unlimited Price to Increase For Prime Subscribers

Beginning on Thursday, May 5th, 2022, Amazon Prime customers will pay $8.99 per month (up from $7.99) for Amazon Music Unlimited, higher-ups disclosed, or $89 annually (an increase from $79), reports Digital Music News.

Amazon upped the cost of Prime itself to $14.99 per month or $139 per year in February.

Additionally, the price of Amazon Music’s single-device plan – which enables customers to stream music on a lone Echo device or Fire television – is poised to jump from $3.99 to $4.99 on the same date. For non-Prime members, Amazon Music will still cost $9.99 per month, or the same price that Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, and most other streaming platforms charge in the United States.

Amazon Music, which has hosted all manner of livestreams (and debuted other exclusive content) in an effort to stand out in the ultra-competitive streaming space, stated that the price boost will “help us bring you even more content and features.”

And while Amazon Music Unlimited’s Prime-discounted cost will still be a bit lower than Spotify’s stateside price, a number of fans are taking to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the development, which arrives one day after Forbes named Jeff Bezos the second-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $171 billion.

Longer-term, it remains to be seen whether services such as Amazon Music and Spotify will raise their monthly price past $9.99 for individuals in the U.S.

Spotify experimented with increases in certain markets (and for select plans) last year, but CFO Paul Vogel in March of 2022 struck a noncommittal tone when discussing the possibility of further hikes.

“I think over time, we’ll continue to figure out what we want to do with pricing,” said Vogel. “I don’t think we necessarily know right now how consistent we will be. … I think what we do believe is we continue to add more and more value into Spotify, right?”