Is It Worth Subscribing to Prime Video Without Amazon Prime Shipping?

Subscribing to a streaming service can be a huge commitment. This can especially ring true for services like Amazon Prime Video, which gives you multiple membership options. Here is a look at whether it would be worth subscribing to Prime Video as a standalone service without becoming a Prime member.

What Does Amazon Prime Video Offer?

With a Prime Video subscription, you can access a wide collection of movies, TV shows, live sports, and live TV, including 24/7 news coverage. Prime Video also offers Originals and Exclusives, documentaries, music titles, and reality TV. You can also subscribe to external "channels" and services from the app, which makes managing subscriptions easier.

Prime Video has an impressive catalog of movies and TV shows spanning genres and languages and a way to purchase and rent individual titles that are not included in your Prime Video plan.

Your Membership Options

You can access Prime Video with an Amazon Prime membership ($14.99/month or $139/year) or a student membership ($7.49/month or $69/year). If you want to skip the Prime subscription and get the standalone Prime Video membership, you will be paying $8.99/month. You also get a 30-day free trial in these plans, given that you are an eligible new member.

The Best of Prime Video

With Prime Video, you can take advantage of some decent features like offline viewing, X-rays for movies and TV shows for better discovery, Ultra HD viewing on select titles, and the ability to add multiple profiles. The app also lets you filter movies and TV shows by genre, with featured collections like "Home Premiere" and "Critically Acclaimed" available to browse through.

You can also create a watch list of your favorite anticipated movies and TV shows and a "Kids" profile with parental controls. I find that Prime Video's Live TV section is a good way to find sports, news, and family channels that run around the clock, with a well-organized schedule and a long list of channels.

Device Integration

Having Prime Video means you can watch shows and movies anytime, anywhere, on your preferred devices. Compatible devices and services include:

Smart TVs and Blu-ray players (brands include Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and more) iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac) through the App Store Android devices through the Google Play Store Windows Game consoles (Sony PlayStation 3, Sony PlayStation 4/Pro, Sony PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S, and Xbox One) Set-top boxes Google Chromecast

Prime Video can also be seamlessly integrated with Amazon devices, including Fire TV or Fire TV Stick, Echo devices with a screen, and Fire Tablet. With the web app, you can also view your favorite titles on your browser of choice.

With a Prime Video subscription, you can manage your subscriptions for channels and other streaming services in one place. A few top subscription options include Paramount+, Crave, StackTV, and MGM. There is something for everyone, including sports fans (Fubo Sports, Sportsnet, DAZN, and more), anime fans (Crunchyroll), and cinephiles (Sundance Now).

After the app's redesign earlier this year, you can easily view, manage, and cancel subscriptions using a streamlined interface. While this could be something that proves useful if you are someone willing to commit a handful of subscriptions, it can also be difficult to have to explore different subscriptions to unlock the best watching experience possible.

Prime Video's Restrictions

A major problem that you might face as a Prime Video user is the limited advertisements for movies and TV shows. Going ad-free requires an extra fee of $2.99 per month on top of your standalone subscription or Prime subscription, which can be a big pain point when pondering whether that subscription is worth it.

Another roadblock is, of course, the need to shell out extra money to rent or buy certain titles that are not covered by your Prime Video subscription. Some titles may only be available on partnered channels, with most live TV channels requiring a fee on top of your base subscription. This takes away from the concept of having live TV as part of the app, with many live news channels and sports events being behind a paywall. The base version also excludes Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio for supported platforms.

An Amazon Prime subscription, which costs $14.99/month or $139/year, would be a smart way to save money in the long run. You would be paying $8.99/month (or approximately $107.90/year) for a Prime Video membership, which would save you only about $6 per month or $32 a year. Further, you would not be getting any Prime membership benefits, which include:

Free shipping on eligible items when you order from Amazon Prime Video plan that is similar to what your basic subscription plan would look like Amazon Prime Music A discounted plan on Amazon Music Unlimited Prime Gaming Prime Reading Prime Photos, which gives you unlimited photo storage on Amazon Drive

A Prime membership would also give you some bonus shopping benefits like early access to Prime Day deals and rewards cards.

The Verdict: Is It Worth It?

The not-so-simple answer is that it depends. A good way to gauge whether a monthly subscription would be in your favor is to try out the free trial period. If you are a fan of the library that Prime Video offers, then the monthly cost would not feel like a burden on your wallet. Prime Video does offer an interesting pool of titles, including Originals and Exclusives. You still have a good choice of movies and TV shows that you can stream in high quality, download, and watch on any compatible device.

On the other hand, there are a few disadvantages to just going for the Prime Video membership, including restrictions on titles and channels, the need to subscribe to other services for an exhaustive library, and ads. This could make the membership seem less economical, depending on how impressed you are by Prime Video's collection.

One option would be to skip the Prime Video membership altogether and just pay for the select titles that you want to rent or buy. Other streaming services, like YouTube, also offer this feature. But this could add up if you have a long list of titles that you are interested in, in which case a basic subscription plan could just be the way to go.

At the end of the day, if you are not big on free shipping and other perks offered by a Prime membership, considering a standalone Prime Video membership could be a possible route.

If the benefits look appealing, however, it would be more economical to just go with the monthly or yearly Prime membership plan, access Prime Video, and possibly check out channels or titles that you want to buy or rent. Beyond saving money, the perks you get from this plan could supersede combing through Prime Video to figure out what titles are included in your basic plan.