Amazon announced ads were coming to Prime Video in September 2023, and has now told UK viewers how much they will have to pay to avoid them.
Prime Video ads will be introduced on February 5, 2024. An advert-free bolt-on will cost £2.99.
“Starting February 5, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time,” an email sent to subscribers reads.
This strategy may seem unappealing next to those of Netflix or Disney Plus, which launched ad-supported tiers as a lower-cost way to get streaming.
After this change, the version of Prime Video with ads will cost £5.99 a month, or £8.99 as part of a Prime membership. You’ll pay £8.98 or £11.98 total after the £2.99 ad-free add-on.
Netflix with Ads and Disney Plus’s ad-supported plans cost £4.99 a month.
However, those services are also subject to restrictions not present in Prime Video.
Lower tiers of Disney Plus and Netflix subscription are limited to 1080p resolution streams, where Prime Video provides up-to-4K quality at no extra cost. For now.
You’ll pay £10.99 a month for 4K with Disney Plus Premium, while 4K-ready Netflix Premium costs £17.99 a month.
Elsewhere, Sky added adverts to its NOW Entertainment and Cinema memberships rather sneakily, without a grand announcement, and these cost £9.99 each. Its ad-free Boost add-on costs £6 a month, which also increases resolution from a lowly 720p to Full HD.
However, these Prime Video changes have predictably caused some consternation online among subscribers.
Well... looks like #AmazonPrime #PrimeVideo is going to introduce ads. We have gone full circle.
— Mark McGookin - markmcgookin.bsky.social (@mark_mcgookin) January 3, 2024
Tell you what, take £2.99 off my prime membership and remove the video option all together. pic.twitter.com/oJLA9rofLw
Amazon Prime Video gets in touch to say they'll soon have ads running in their series and movies. Just when you thought things couldn't get worse.
— Linwood Barclay (@linwood_barclay) January 2, 2024
Ads came to US users of Prime Video on December 29, and it’s the UK and Germany next for the drop on February 5. France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia are set to follow later in 2024.
Bank of America predicts this ad move could bring Amazon up to £3.78 billion, made up of advertising revenues and smaller gains from users stumping up the $2.99/£2.99 fee for streams without ads.
The big question we don’t yet have an answer to: how intrusive will these ads be?
