Amazon Prime Video is now a standalone Netflix competitor

Amazon Prime Video started off as a nice little bonus for Prime subscribers, but Amazon has improved the feature to the point where it’s now up there with Hulu as the only two serious Netflix competitors. The only problem is that you need to have an annual Prime membership in order to access Prime Video, which limits the service’s reach and makes it harder to compete with the likes of Netflix. That’s why Amazon has introduced a monthly subscription option for Prime Video that comes unbundled from Prime, which means you can stream all the content you want from the service without having to also pay for Prime.

Amazon is taking on Netflix with a new stand-alone membership for Prime Video. The e-commerce giant on Sunday night will begin offering two new monthly memberships, the first time it has directly allowed customers to eschew the commitment of an annual Prime subscription in favor of a more flexible monthly option (Sprint began offering monthly Prime memberships as part of a bundle last month). Now, customers can subscribe to Amazon Prime for $10.99 a month or just Prime Video for $8.99 a month. The monthly Amazon Prime subscription comes with all the perks that annual Prime members also receive, including free shipping, access to music via Prime Music and TV and movies via Prime Video. The Prime Video option, however, offers Amazon’s library of original and licensed video without the free shipping or music streaming perks. Amazon has made its video streaming business a priority in recent years, bulking up on original shows like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle, paying top dollar for exclusive streaming rights to broadcast and cable TV fare and spending big to distribute films such as Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq and Sundance title Manchester by the Sea. But this is the first time that the Jeff Bezos-led company will separate its video offerings from its core Prime shipping offering.