How to Cancel Amazon Prime (and Actually Get Your Refund)

If you want out of Amazon Prime, the process itself is quick — but Amazon stacks the path with reminders of everything you are about to give up, and the refund rules have a sharp edge. This guide walks you through cancelling on desktop, tells you exactly when you qualify for a refund, and shows how to keep Prime Video if the shows are the only part you actually use.

What you actually lose when you cancel Prime

This is the part people underestimate. "Prime" is a bundle, and all of it disappears the moment your membership lapses:

• Prime Video — your watchlist stays, but streaming access ends.
• Amazon Music — the Prime music tier stops.
• Prime Reading — borrowed books and magazines lock.
• Fast, free shipping — back to standard rates and timelines.
• Whole Foods discounts, Prime Gaming, Amazon Photos, and member-only deals — all gone.

If you only signed up for one of these, check whether you can buy that piece on its own (Prime Video standalone is the common one) before you give up the rest.

How do you cancel Amazon Prime?

The flow is cleanest on a desktop browser:

1. Sign in at amazon.com and hover Account & Lists in the top-right corner.
2. Select Prime Membership (sometimes under Memberships & Subscriptions).
3. On the Prime page, click Manage Membership → Update, cancel and more.
4. Click End Membership (Amazon may label it Cancel My Benefits).
5. Amazon shows a series of reminders and may offer to remind you later — keep clicking through (Continue to Cancel).
6. Choose End on [renewal date] to keep Prime through the period you already paid for, or End Now only if you qualify for a refund (next section).

Amazon emails a confirmation. If you do not get one, the cancellation may not have gone through — recheck your Prime Membership page for an end date.

Will you get a refund?

Amazon's stated policy is narrow: you get a full refund of the current membership fee only if you and your account have not used any Prime benefits since your latest charge — no Prime-shipped orders, no Prime Video or Music, no Prime Reading, no exclusive deals.

In practice that means:

• Annual member who has used Prime this year? Usually no refund. Switch off auto-renew and keep Prime until the year you paid for runs out.
• Charged for a renewal you forgot about and haven't used since? You likely qualify — cancel and request the refund. It posts in about three to five business days.
• Memberships from a gift or promo code are not refundable.

Keep Prime Video without paying for Prime

If the only thing you use is the streaming, you do not have to keep full Prime. Amazon sells a standalone Prime Video membership for about $8.99/month (as of June 2026) — the same catalog, without the shipping and other perks you are not using. For some households that is the cheaper honest answer to "is Prime worth it": drop Prime, keep Video.

What Amazon Prime costs in 2026

For reference, here is where the plans stand before you decide whether to leave outright or downsize:

If an annual plan or the Prime Video standalone would solve the cost problem, you do not have to cancel at all — you can change tiers from the same membership page:

Still trimming subscriptions? Use our walkthrough on how to cancel any streaming service, see whether Prime Video channels beat standalone subscriptions, or — if the reading perk is what you are weighing — compare Kindle Unlimited vs Prime Reading. You can also browse the Experience Index to see how painful each service is to leave.

Frequently asked questions