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Prime Video's first five-service bundle asks $30 on top of what you already pay
Amazon says its AMC+, BritBox, MGM+, PBS Masterpiece and STARZ bundle is 39% off, a claim that implies a list price nearer $49 than the $40 in the report, and buyers without Prime still need a Prime Video plan starting at $9.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Prime Video added a five-service bundle on September 15 selling AMC+, BritBox, MGM+, PBS Masterpiece and STARZ together to U.S. customers for $30 a month, a lineup The Hollywood Reporter revealed.
- Any Amazon customer can buy the bundle, including those who do not subscribe to Prime, which opens Amazon's channel storefront to people who never paid for the membership.
- Amazon says the bundle is 39% off the price of buying each add-on separately, while pocket-lint put the standalone total for the same five services at more than $40 a month.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost The non-Prime shopper Amazon has just opened this to pays at least $39 a month, because the $30 rides on a $9 ad-supported Prime Video plan, and $44 if that household will not watch ads.
- decision Households have to choose between $30 for five services at $6 each and paying separately for the one or two they actually watch, and they have to build that comparison themselves.
- contradiction Amazon's 39% requires a list price near $49, while the report's standalone total is more than $40; which figure holds changes the claimed saving by several dollars a month.
- constraint Five networks now reach these customers through Amazon's add-ons page, so sign-up, billing and cancellation for all of them sit in one storefront the networks do not run.
On the add-ons page the offer arrives as a percentage. The listing reads "Bundle five and save 39%" [8]. Run it backwards: $30 at 39% off implies an undiscounted total near $49 a month, which makes the claimed saving about $19 [1]. Pocket-lint put the cost of buying the same five separately at more than $40 [6]. Those two figures point at different list prices, and the higher one is what Amazon's own percentage requires.
Thirty dollars is also only part of the bill. Pocket-lint reports the bundle is charged on top of Amazon Prime or a Prime Video subscription [11], and Prime Video starts at $9 a month with ads, $14 for the ad-free Ultra tier [10]. The customer Amazon has newly reached here, the account holder who never bought Prime [4], starts at $39 a month, or $44 without ads [2].
Split $30 across five services and each one costs $6 a month [3]. A household already paying for STARZ and AMC+ is picking up BritBox, MGM+ and PBS Masterpiece for the difference. If one show is the reason, the household is paying for four services to get it. Much of what is on offer is library: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, the whole Walking Dead franchise [13].
Five networks have agreed to be sold in one basket at 39% under their combined add-on price, on a page where Amazon owns the payment method and the cancel button [7][12]. Ryan Pirozzi, head of Prime Video Channels, said "Our subscriptions and bundles business continues to see incredible growth because we stay focused on delivering unmatched selection, value, and convenience" [9]. The report gives no standalone price for each add-on and nothing on how these five are doing on their own direct subscriptions.
What the evidence covers is the discount, the lineup, and Amazon dropping the Prime requirement [4][5]. Saying anything about how standalone is working for these five would take the networks' own subscriber counts.
The test before adding it is a list: the titles someone in the house will finish in the next 60 days, and which of the five each one sits on. At three services or more, the bundle prices out at $6 each [3]. At one or two, the comparison is those add-ons priced individually on the same subscriptions page, reachable from the Prime Video add-ons page through "Browse All" [12], set against $30 before the 39% sells the other three.
What to watch
- Whether Amazon drops the Prime Video plan requirement, which would make $30 the entire monthly bill.
- Whether Amazon publishes what each of the five add-ons costs on its own, the figure the 39% is measured against.
- Whether any of the five networks report standalone subscriber or cancellation numbers after selling through the bundle.