Amazon Prime Pricing Could Increase

The online retail giant is considering a price increase for its Prime subscription service.

During Amazon's fourth quarter earnings conference call, the company revealed that it might need to reevaluate its Prime subscription pricing. Currently, Prime members pay $79 per year, but the proposed fee increase could see that price rise by $20 to $40.

Amazon Prime benefits include free 2-day shipping, unlimited access to a growing library of streaming movies and TV shows, and one free Kindle book to borrow each month. Unfortunately, due to rising shipping fees and increased popularity for Prime Instant Video, the cost of maintaining the service might be too much to sustain the current $79 pricing.

While a potential price increase for Amazon Prime membership has not been finalized, any new revisions to the subscription scheme could see fees rise to as high as $119 per year. It's also possible that the company will experiment with piecing out its services in order to offer less expensive plans for specific features.

Source: The Verge