Many companies and manufacturers have raised their prices in recent months. Now another offer from Amazon has been made, for which customers will have to pay more in the future.
In September 2022, the price for the Prime subscription increased, in January this year it hit the streaming service Amazon Music Unlimited and in February the online retailer increased the minimum order value for free orders. Now Amazon announced another price increase. It mainly affects e-book readers, because from now on they have to dig deeper into their pockets for the Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Amazon Kindle Unlimited gives subscribers access to a variety of e-books, audio books, and electronic editions of popular journals and magazines. The offer can be used via Amazon’s own e-book reader Kindle, via the Kindle app, as well as on a smartphone or tablet.
Two new customer campaigns for Kindle Unlimited
Kindle Unlimited used to cost 9.99 euros per month, but now Amazon has raised the price to 11.75 euros. That corresponds to an increase of at least 17.6 percent that subscribers have to pay monthly. Curiously, Amazon offers two promotions for new customers who want to try out Kindle Unlimited. You should therefore be careful which button you use to start the test phase. On the one hand, Amazon advertises the classic Trial period of 30 days, where new customers can try Kindle Unlimited for free. However, this period can be accessed via another link double to two months. Thus, new customers save the fee for one month.
After the trial period expires, Amazon customers will have to pay the new price for Kindle Unlimited. The fee is debited to a credit card stored in the Amazon account. The subscription can be canceled at any time via www.amazon.de/kucentral under “Manage Membership”. Borrowed books and magazines are then removed from the private library.
Does the price increase also affect existing customers?
Existing customers are also affected by the price increase for Amazon Kindle Unlimited. The company is currently notifying them of the adjustment via email. Unlike new customers, however, they do not have to pay the higher price immediately, since they have until July 31 to extend their subscription at the previous price of EUR 9.99 per month. However, this only applies if you complete Kindle Unlimited for a full year within this period. In the case of monthly billing, the price increase will take effect after June 18, according to Amazon.
Amazon has included the possibility of price adjustments in its Conditions kept open. Here it says: “We can change the membership fee at our reasonable discretion according to factually justified and objective criteria. Membership fees will only change in proportion as our own costs decrease or increase.”
With the Kindle Scribe, Amazon offers its largest e-book reader to date. We tried it:
Amazon puts Kindle Unlimited in focus
Kindle Unlimited can only be used with an existing Amazon account. In any case, customers were already affected by some of the previous price increases or adjustments made by the online retailer. The renewed increase in prices should be all the more annoying. In addition, Amazon only recently made an important change in its e-paper offering.
Also read: Amazon tests cheaper Prime subscription – that’s (not) included
For a long time it was possible to read selected newspapers and magazines as an e-paper version apart from Kindle Unlimited. You ordered the magazine in a virtual kiosk and received it directly on your Kindle. However, Amazon does sell the individual subscriptions discontinued on March 9, 2023 and has referred to his subscription offer ever since. So if you want to continue reading your daily or weekly magazine digitally, you will have to switch to a subscription if it is available there. Until September 4 at the latest, readers will receive selected newspapers from an existing subscription on the Kindle, after which it will finally be over and Amazon will pay back any outstanding partial amounts.