Ads coming to Amazon Prime Video in January, ad-free will cost extra

Starting January 29, 2024, Amazon Prime users will soon have their viewing sessions interrupted by ads.

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Amazon Prime Video started out as an added value to boost the appeal of its world-changing Prime subscription, but the streaming wars have kicked content investment into overdrive. Amazon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating original programming and adaptations like the Lord of the Rings series, Wheel of Time, and The Boys.

As is the case with other streaming services, that cost is starting to trickle down to subscribers. Rather than raise Prime Video's subscription costs outright, Amazon will instead use ads to make more revenue. The company has announced that all existing Prime Video users will be subject to "limited advertisements" in late January of next year. Users can pay an extra $2.99 per month to avoid these ads on Prime Video.

Amazon says that the amount of ads will be less than what you'd find on TV these days, but there's no clarification on ad length or timing.

Check below for the official announcement that Amazon sent to Prime Video subscribers:

Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in competing content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.

We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month.

Your subscription includes access to exclusive and broad streaming video content (including Prime Video exclusives like Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, The Boys, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Citadel, The Wheel of Time, Reacher, and the Summer I Turned Pretty, as well as movies such as Air, Creed II, Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy, and exclusive live sports including NFL Thursday Night Football.

You also have access to Prime Video Channels, which provides an unmatched selection of subscription channels like Max, Paramount+ with Showtime, BET+, MGM+, ViX+, Crunchyroll, PBS Kids, NBA League Pass, MLB.tv, BritBox, STARZ, and Discovery+ -- with no extra apps to download and no cable required.