Amazon announced Prime Ultra, a new subscription plan yesterday. It is the new ad-free subscription service that replaces the current option to go ad-free on Prime Video.
To better understand the change, it is necessary to look back at the previous structure.
Amazon Prime is available for about $15 per month in the United States. A subscription gives subscribers several features, including access to Prime Video. Amazon, some time ago, decided to turn the then-ad-free Prime Video into an ad-powered streaming service.
This meant that every subscriber started to see ads on Prime Video, unless they paid Amazon an extra $3 per month to retain the status quo (ad-free). Amazon removed some features in the ad-powered plan, namely support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.
What Amazon Prime Ultra changes
Amazon Prime Ultra is the replacement for the ad-free option. It should not come as a surprise therefore that it offers an ad-free experience as well.
For around $5 per month extra, customers get the following extras on top:
- 100 downloads for offline viewing.
- Up to 5 simultaneous streams.
- 4K UHD.
- Dolby Atmos.
As a consequence, Amazon is removing support for 4K and UHD streams from the regular Prime Video subscription. In other words, if you want 4K, you need to pay an extra $5 to retain that option.
Prime customers who pay yearly may also pay yearly for Prime Video Ultra. This costs roughly $46 then per year instead of $60.
Note that Amazon is improving the regular ad-powered Prime Video experience as well (except for removing 4K support). Subscribers get Dolby Vision, 50 downloads instead of 25, and 4 streams instead of 3 under the revised plans.
Closing Words
Amazon is increasing the cost of an ad-free Prime Video experience with the introduction of the Ultra option. To make it appeal more, it decided to move 4K support to the Ultra plan exclusively. Dolby Vision is moved to the regular Prime Video plan while Dolby Atmos remains an exclusive for the add-on.
Is it worth the $20 per month? Considering that other extras are included, including free shipping for many items, it may be worth it for some users, especially if they watch Prime Video regularly and dislike advertisement.
However, 4K video at streaming services is not all that great when you compare it to 4K discs or downloaded 4K video files. The reason is simple: video streaming services use compression heavily.
The new Ultra plan launches in the United States only. Whether it is coming to other regions remains to be seen, but there is a good chance that Amazon will introduce it globally eventually.