When Netflix and other streaming giants found themselves in need of more cash, they cracked down on viewers who shared passwords.
People grumbled, but the gambit worked.
Now, the same principle is being applied to another service we use every day: Online shipping.
Amazon is discontinuing a popular service that allowed Amazon Prime members to share fast, free shipping privileges with people outside their household, marking a major shift in how Amazon orders are fulfilled and potentially raising costs.
The program, Prime Invitee, will vanish in less than a month.
Through the program, which started in 2009, an Amazon Prime member could share their shipping benefits with one other adult, even if that person used a different address. The invitee got a limited Prime account with the free two-day shipping perk.
Prime Invitee stopped taking new enrollees in 2015 — but legacy users have been able to continue to enjoy the perk.
The Invitee program is ending Oct. 1. Taking its place — for the estimated 240 million Prime subscribers worldwide, more than 180 million in the U.S. alone — is the Amazon Family program, where shipping and other benefits can be shared as long as the members live at the same address.
“Amazon Family enables Prime members to share a range of benefits with one adult — whether that is a spouse, family member, or roommate — and Prime Video and additional digital content like Kindle eBooks, audiobooks, and games, with up to four children in their household,” Amazon said in a statement to The Times.
Dan Ives, an analyst at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, said Amazon’s decision to change its subscription policy is a “sign of the times.”
He said the e-commerce giant was taking a page from Netflix.
The problem that streamers such as Netflix wrestled with was customers sharing or selling information for entire accounts. These streamers previously turned a blind eye to password sharing, seeing it as a way of growing their audience. The practice was complicated for online providers by illicit marketplaces that popped up selling account passwords. Streamers and pay-TV providers lost $9.1 billion in revenue in 2019 to account sharing and piracy.
Some experts thought the shared password crackdown was risky, but it turned out to be a big success for Netflix and other streamers like HBO Max launched their own efforts.
A crackdown on password sharing followed. Now, Amazon is cracking down, too. Although the Prime program doesn’t involve password sharing — rather, the invitee has a stripped-down version of a Prime account — it does spread the perk across households.
According to Reuters, which cited internal company data, Amazon’s recent Prime Day (which this year was extended to four days for the first time) failed to meet last year’s total U.S. sign-ups. A Reuters analysis found that the company acquired 5.4 million in U.S. sign-ups over 21-days ahead of the July Prime Day this year, an estimated 116,000 fewer than the year before — the data did not include the exact time period for 2024.
Amazon pushed back on the report in a statement to The Times, saying its Prime membership continues to show strong growth and customer engagement in the nation and internationally, as reported in its second-quarter earnings.
“Additionally, Prime Day 2025 and the three weeks leading up to the event had record-breaking Prime customer sign-ups worldwide,” the statement said. “We continue to see robust adoption globally.”
Nevertheless, the Prime Invitee program is being phased out.
Amazon is following “Netflix’s model in terms of the family program and trying to ultimately crack down on password and account share,” Ives told The Times. “For Netflix, it’s been a home run success. And Amazon is going to go down the same path. … It’s a chronic issue for Amazon.”
“The clock struck midnight on this for a lot of families,” Ives said of Prime Invitee.
But does the company stand to lose members due to the switch?
Free shipping is important to many U.S. shoppers.
A recent survey by personal finance website NerdWallet found that more than 2 in 5 Americans said they would almost always opt for a retailer that offers free shipping over one that doesn’t. Survey participants also said the two most important factors when they shop online are lowest price and free shipping.
Many of those who want to keep the Prime shipping perk will now have to pay for it. For those affected by the switch, Amazon is offering a limited-time deal of 12 months of Prime for $14.99. The offer is valid until Dec. 31. The membership regularly costs $14.99 a month, $139 for a year.
Ives doesn’t expect customers to abandon Prime due to Amazon’s latest move because he said many view the service as being as essential as their utilities or TV service. Added to that, the company doesn’t have much competition on the same scale, he said.
What does the Amazon Family program offer?
The Amazon Family program gives Prime members the opportunity to share membership benefits with one other adult in their household, up to four teens (who were added before April 7, 2025) and up to four profiles for children.
Additional adult members and any former invitees who don’t live with the account holder will need their own Prime membership.
For a Prime member to share a benefit with another adult, the address must be one “you consider to be your home and where you spend the majority of your time,” according to Amazon.
Shared benefits from the program include:
- Free delivery on Prime-eligible items.
- Access to exclusive Prime events and deals .
- Prime video (with ads).
- Prime Reading, which includes e-books and audiobooks but a smaller library than Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited service.
- Access to third-party benefits (for example, Grubhub with no delivery fees).
- Amazon Music Prime can be shared with one other adult in the Amazon family. This allows both adults to access ad-free listening on shuffle.
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