Your Amazon Prime purchase options have always been pretty straightforward: new accounts are eligible for a free trial, students get a 50% discount and all other members pay $99 per year. Sure, there have been some rare instances when Amazon discounted the yearly fee, but historically, you either paid full-price for a year or you didn’t get Prime access. But that’s all changed since Sprint announced a new way for its customers to pay for Prime…
Instead of paying $99 upfront for a year of Prime service, new and existing Sprint subscribers will have the option to pay $10.99 monthly. Quick math shows that Amazon is charging an extra $32.88 over the course of a year for customers who go month-to-month, which is an increase of more than 30%.
The service is the same no matter which payment route you go, so you’re paying a pretty significant premium just for the luxury of spreading out your purchase cost and having the flexibility to cancel without penalty. In my opinion, the only time it’d make sense to use this new offer is if you plan to subscribe to Prime for only a few months since you’re locked into a year by going direct through Amazon.
Source: Sprint
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Is this seriously the best Sprint can offer?
Obviously if you want an entire year of Prime, this wouldn’t be the best way to get it. However, if you only occasionally order from Amazon this might be a good way to go. Pay your $11 bucks get your stuff shipped and get a month of free streaming services.
Yep, that’s about the only instance when this offer is advantageous.