All You Need to Know About Subscribe With Amazon
After offering books, music, movies and even online servers, Amazon is getting ready to roll out yet another offering to its ever expanding portfolio: subscriptions.
Aptly named Subscribe with Amazon, the online marketplace’s latest venture is hoping to be the one-stop shop for all of your online subscription needs. Here’s what you need to know about Amazon’s latest offering.
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What is Subscribe with Amazon?
Subscribe with Amazon is a subsection of Amazon that deals exclusively with subscription-based services or content. Some of the more notable services/content available on the platform as of the time of writing includes cloud storage service Dropbox Plus, online newspaper The Wall Street Journal, and TV streaming service Sling TV.
Available subscriptions are all sorted into categories, so you can find a service or content that suits you rather easily.
The benefits of using Subscribe with Amazon
For starters, Amazon users will be given a dashboard that would allow them to control all of their subscriptions done via Subscribe with Amazon. Additionally, as all subscriptions are done through Amazon, you won’t have to key in your information (credit card, billing, etc.) across multiple sites.
Besides convenience, Amazon has mentioned that it intends to offer promotions on Subscribe with Amazon as well, so those who are always on the lookout for a deal may find some decent ones here in the future.
Subscribe with Amazon pricing
When it comes to the pricing of subscriptions, Amazon has explicitly stated that the companies offering this service will be free to set the prices for the subscriptions. Should they choose to do so, they can even offer special prices to users with active Amazon Prime accounts.
Needless to say, Amazon will take a cut of the subscription from the company. For the subscriber’s first year, Amazon will receive a 30% cut of the subscription. After the first year, Amazon will take only a 15% cut for every subsequent year that the subscriber pays for.
Subscribe with Amazon requirements for companies
Unsurprisingly, those interested in having their service/content available on Subscribe with Amazon must fulfills three requirements. Thankfully, they aren’t too hard to achieve.
- The subscription product must be a digital app, a website, or a piece of software.
- Company in question must have a business address in the United States, so those who do not operate in the States will not be able to use Subscribe with Amazon.
- The service/content being offered requires the customer to pay a recurring fee in order to access.
How to get on Subscribe with Amazon
Assuming a company manages to fulfill all of the requirements, the said company can choose to apply to get on Subscribe with Amazon with this application form.
Should Amazon accept the application, the company will gain access to a self-service portal where they can set up their product page. It is here that the company will decide on the tiers and pricing of the subscription.
Overall, Subscribe with Amazon looks to be a highly promising venture for both Amazon as well as startups that are offering subscription-based services or content.
As of the time of writing, it appears that a large chunk of the subscriptions, but not all of them, is geographically restricted to the US only, so those living outside of the States will find very little use of the platform right now.