Amazon Prime Video Now Shows Ads in the US Unless You Pay Extra

Amazon Prime Video users in the US will start seeing ads in movies and TV shows starting today. To continue enjoying an ad-free experience, Prime Video users will need to pay an extra add-on costing $2.99/month.

As of today, Amazon Prime Video is included for free with an Amazon Prime subscription, which costs $139/year or $14.99/month. Amazon Prime Video is also available as a standalone subscription at $8.99/month in the US. While an Amazon Prime subscription is still great value with Prime shipping, Prime Video, and other benefits such as Prime Reading or Prime Gaming, it’s hard not to see this $2.99/month ad-free add-on as another price increase.

Amazon previously said that these “limited advertisements” would allow the company to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” Earlier this month, however, Amazon laid off hundreds of employees working at Prime Video and the company’s MGM Studios.

According to an internal presentation seen by the Wall Street Journal, Amazon Prime Video users will see between two and three-and-half minutes of ads per hour on average, which is below other streaming services and regular TV channels in the US. Ads will be shown before a program starts and/or during it.

According to the same presentation, Amazon expects its new Prime Video ads to be seen by approximately 159 million global viewers every month, which is way ahead of the 23 million monthly active users Netflix recently said it had for its ad-supported tier. An Amazon spokesperson also told the WSJ that the company isn’t afraid of immediately losing subscribers as the number of Prime members continues to grow and the service’s renewal rates are high.

If you use Prime Video today, are you planning to pay the $2.99/month add-on to keep an ad-free experience? Let us know in the comments below.