Amazon Aims Squarely At Netflix With New Monthly Subscription Packages For Prime

Amazon unveiled last night two monthly subscription options for its Prime product, which was previously only available as an annual offering.

Customers can now pay $8.99 per month to stream Amazon’s series and films, or $10.99 per month for unlimited streaming and Prime’s other features, which include free two-day shipping on Amazon orders, unlimited music streaming, and more. The existing yearly Amazon Prime subscription is still available for $99.

The new offerings bring Amazon more squarely into competition with streaming giant Netflix, which offers monthly subscriptions priced between $7.99 and $11.99. Amazon Prime and Netflix currently boast similar subscriber counts, according to The New York Times: the former counts between 57 and 61 million subscribers in the U.S. and the latter has 75 million globally.

However, it’s worth noting that a month-to-month commitment — which comes to $108 for just streaming and $132 for all of the Prime features — ends up being slightly more expensive than the $100 annual package.

Amazon began to toy with the idea of a monthly iteration of Prime in March when it teamed with Sprint to allow Sprint subscribers to purchase the service as a $10.99 add-on to their monthly phone bills.

The decision to break out the streaming service separately also reflects the growing strength of Amazon’s content library, which includes the exclusive U.S. rights to Downton Abbey as well as hit original series like Transparent and several forthcoming projects from Woody Allen.