Amazon to End Popular Prime Perk for Non-Household Users
Amazon is ending one of its long-standing perks that allowed users outside the same household to share Prime benefits for free, a move that could impact hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Starting October 1, the company will officially shut down its “Prime Invitee” program, which let Prime members extend their free shipping benefit to friends or family members who didn’t live with them. Going forward, affected users will need to sign up for their own Prime membership to continue enjoying perks like free shipping.
The program, first introduced in 2009, stopped accepting new sign-ups in 2015, but many existing users have continued to benefit from it. Amazon confirmed the change on its website and told CNN that fewer than 1% of U.S. Prime members will be affected.
In a statement, the company encouraged customers to switch to “Amazon Family”, which still allows Prime benefits to be shared – but only among members of the same household.
According to insiders, hundreds of thousands of people were still using Prime Invitee, though the figure remains below one million.
The decision comes amid recent concerns about Prime sign-ups. A Reuters report revealed that during Amazon’s expanded Prime Day event in July, the company registered 116,000 fewer new members over the 21-day promotional period compared to last year, even as Amazon claimed record-breaking sales.
Amazon has not disclosed its official Prime subscriber numbers, but estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners suggest the platform has around 197 million U.S. customers as of March 2025.
Prime memberships currently cost $14.99 per month or $139 per year, with the last price increase implemented in 2022.
The phase-out of Prime Invitee marks a shift toward encouraging individual subscriptions, potentially boosting revenue but frustrating longtime users who have relied on the perk for over a decade.
