It’s been a little more than two years since Amazon started charging extra for ad-free Prime Video streaming, and now that we’ve gotten used to the extra fee, it’s time for a price hike.
Amazon just announced that its $2.99-a-month add-on for removing ads from Prime Video is morphing into a new plan called Prime Video Ultra, which will set you back $4.99 a month. That’s a 66-percent price hike for monthly subscribers who formerly opted for the cheaper ad-free add-on. An annual subscription for Prime Video Ultra costs $45.99, a 23-percent discount compared to the new plan’s monthly rate.
Slated to arrive April 10, Prime Video Ultra will come with a few added benefits besides stripping away most ads (live sports and other programming will still have commercial breaks), including up to five concurrent 4K streams (up from the original limit of three) and up to 100 offline downloads (up from 25).
At the same time, standard Prime members (who get Prime Video with ads included in their subscriptions, which cost $14.99 a month or $139 a year) will see some changes too, including added support for Dolby Vision HDR, an additional concurrent video stream (for a total of 4) and double the amount of offline downloads compared to the former 25-download limit.
But for regular Prime subscribers streaming Prime Video, that’s where the good news ends. Starting April 10, 4K video streaming will become exclusive to the Prime Video Ultra plan, which means streaming quality will drop to regular-old HD, although you will get Dolby Vision support.
“Delivering ad-free streaming with premium features requires significant investment, and this structure aligns with other major streaming services while ensuring customers have the flexibility to choose how they want to watch,” Amazon said in a statement.
Prime Video used to be one of the key benefits of a Prime subscription, giving streamers full access to Amazon’s Prime Video library in 4K HDR and without commercial breaks.
But all that changed in early 2024, when Amazon began putting ads in its Prime Video streams. To lose the ads, you had to pony up $2.99 a month for the ad-free add-on.
The change was particularly galling for Prime members who’d signed up for a full year just prior to the Prime Video policy changes. Some Prime members even filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, but the case was ultimately dismissed.