Amazon has sent out an e-mail to members (subject line ‘your prime benefit sharing is ending – action required‘) that are an invited guest of a Prime member through the Prime Invitee program stating that this will no longer be available as of October 31, 2025 and that they will need to either sign up for their own account or join an Amazon family account.
This is an old program that some people were still able to take advantage of. It used to be possible to add up to four people to your account and they would receive free shipping. For some time it hasn’t been possible to add new members to this program but existing accounts worked fine, unfortunately Amazon is now sunsetting this program completely.
If you do need prime there are currently the following deals:
- Get a free 30-day trial for Amazon Prime
- You can get a monthly membership for $14.99 or annual membership for $139
- EBT or Medicaid users can signup for a cheaper $6.99 monthly plan
- Young Adults ages 18-24 and students of all ages can get six months for free (our full review of Amazon Student & Young Adult here). Students and young adults also pay a discounted rate of $7.49/month after the free trial.
Today is Sept 5th 2026. The email of Sept 1st, subject: “Important update to Prime benefit sharing“, has a link to get a year of membership for ~15$. Today that link works, so get’ it.
I can’t puzzle out who invited me all those many years ago. My guess it would have been some random coworker shortly after it was introduced. Suggestions welcome, since I’d love to thank them.
I don’t use Amazon much, but this explains why the shipping has always confused me. I had prime shipping and didn’t know :).
Did you accept the offer and verify you got a year? I click the link and the page just says this “join Amazon Prime. Auto-renews at $14.99/month (plus taxes). Cancel anytime.” And below that:
By signing up to Prime, you agree to the Amazon Prime Terms and authorize us to charge your default payment method or another payment method on file $14.99 each month plus tax until you cancel. We will notify you in advance if the price changes.
Appears “impacted” people have been sent an offer for 1 year of Prime for $15. (This could be ymmv, but worth checking your spam folder for such an offer if you are an add-on that is losing the benefit)
Following up on a recent Prime Invitee Program email
More Information About Your Prime Benefits
Hello,
This email is to provide more information about a recent email you received regarding the Prime Invitee Program. As you are currently an Amazon Family member, your current Prime benefits will continue uninterrupted. No action is required.
We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion our previous message may have caused.
Thank you for choosing Amazon.
I can’t remember, it’s been so long since I did this 🙁
Good post Grant. Got the same e-mail. I made a comment below in this chain, being confused why I got the initial e-mail having been on Amazon Family for years. Once again a huge corp can’t get their member status’ straight before sending out mass e-mails. And yet they figure it out after the fact. I work the government in San Diego so not a surprise actually.
When my wife (GF at the time) moved in with me, somehow her account was automatically linked to mine. I never added her to no sharing but yet she got the email. Looking at my account, it looks like she has 2 profiles there (again which I never added manually). One shows only access to Alexa and is a royal blue color. The other says “linked” and shows sharing Shopping, Prime Video and Alexa. This matches my main profile in a teal color. I don’t see anything about “family” but guessing we are already set.
Those effers. Good news is I’ve been waiting for a chance to cancel Prime and this is a good time since I can’t pay for the family any more.
To clarify for those not familiar. This change is for people who have been grandfathered into a Prime Sharing option that has not been available for a number of years. For example, my sister shared her prime with me (and two other sisters) and we have all had the free shipping benefit on our own accounts for many years. They are offering to give us a full year of Prime for $14.99 as part of the transition. Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t end sooner. I hate that it is ending, but there have been times when I have considered signing up for my own Prime anyway to get the other benefits such as Prime Video.
I’m struggling to understand this exactly. Can someone help me understand what I’m missing? Currently my dad pays for a prime membership (not enrolled in Amazon Family or anything), and simply me, my sister, and mom are all logged into dad’s account on separate devices. When we need things from Amazon, we all self serve on our own devices and select a different shipping address (we all live in different places). Is this ability going to be removed for me? Why wouldn’t everyone just do it the way my family does it?
I don’t know if they might try to start cracking down on those sharing an account, but this particular change will not impact your usage.
Sharing your dad’s password is a level of trust that not all families have. Order history, payment methods, etc. Pretty private stuff.
Corporate greed at Amazon! This is not customer obsession and definitely does not seem like a 2-way door.
I’ve had this for so long I forgot what its like without it.. if I want the same benefits of prime (as far as shipping) I just need to spend $35 each time? Thats it?
Free shipping is $35 threshold but 5-8 days after items become available. You lose the speed.
For me, Walmart is shipping next day on $35 orders. I’m done with Amazon.
For free shipping, yeah you just need to reach the min. It’s often slower than Prime but usually is fine for me. I never got used to the fast shipping of Prime, but I do notice how slow it is after coming out of a 1 month Prime trial.
and just like this i stopped using amazon