Prime Video Now Comes With Ads; We Tested the Ad-Supported Service to Answer All of Your Questions
Prime Video introduced ads for all of its subscribers on Jan. 29, giving them the option to upgrade to an ad-free plan.
There are increasingly few streaming services now available on the market that do not offer an ad-supported streaming option. As of Monday, Jan. 29, the Amazon-owned Prime Video has entered the ad game by automatically transitioning all of its subscribers to its ad tier and requiring customers who would like to maintain their ad-free experience to pay an additional $2.99 per month. As the new ad-focused option rolled out, The Streamable took a look at what it had to offer in order to determine whether or not the inconvenience of commercials is worth Amazon’s forced $2.99 upcharge.
- Prime Video moved all subscribers to its new ad-supported tier on Monday, Jan. 29.
- The Streamable tested the new service and found that commercials are running less than one minute per episode.
- In tests, it does not yet appear that ads are being served with movies on Prime Video.
Amazon first began the process of changing Prime Video’s base subscription plan from ad-free to ad-supported last September. While video streaming is still just a small part of Amazon’s larger retail ecosystem, with an increased content investment needed to keep the platform relevant, the tech giant is positioning this increase as necessary for the future growth of Prime Video.
To date, the only remaining major subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform that does not offer an ad-supported subscription option is Apple TV+, however, reports have circulated for well over a year that Apple was building up its executive team in order to make a similar move, but that hasn’t come to pass just yet.
How Many Ads Are There Per Episode?
In The Streamable’s tests, Prime Video only showed two ads per episode, and both came as preroll before the episode began. In every instance, the first ad was for an outside brand and the second was for an Amazon product. The latter was either for Fire TV, another series on the service, Freevee, or something else underneath the company’s umbrella.
During our tests, there were no mid-roll ads, so Prime Video was not showing any commercials in the middle of episodes, however, that very much could change during rollout. There were also no ads at the end of episodes, meaning that if you continued watching from one episode to the next, Prime Video would treat it as a single episode and would not interrupt with a commercial.
How Long Are the Ad Breaks on Prime Video?
When Amazon announced the move to an ad-supported Prime Video, the company noted that it would aim to have fewer and shorter ad breaks than its competitors, which admittedly nearly every streamer has said when introducing ads. In The Streamable’s tests on Prime Video’s first day of servicing commercials, the pre-roll ads were only running for 30 seconds to one minute. However, Amazon has said that ads would ultimately amount to two to three-and-a-half minutes of streaming time per hour.
If the company sticks to that length, it would be the lowest amount of time spent on commercials amongst the major streamers by as many as two full minutes. While ad lengths vary based on each individual commercial, and services rarely announce when they are extending ad breaks, we have compiled the most up-to-date data possible in order to compare the current average ad-length per streaming service.
| Streaming Service | Ads Per Hour |
|---|---|
| Disney+ | 5 minutes |
| Hulu | 9 to 10 minutes |
| Max | 4 minutes |
| Netflix | 4 to 5 minutes |
| Peacock | 4 to 5 minutes |
| Paramount+ | 9 to 10 minutes |
| Prime Video | 2 to 3.5 minutes |
Can You Fast Forward Through Prime Video Ads?
Unfortunately, as nearly every ad-supported streaming service does, you are not able to fast-forward through commercials. Ad-supported streaming generates more revenue per user for the service, so it would lessen the financial impact of the commercials if viewers were able to skip through them.
However, one beneficial fast-forwarding feature that The Streamable discovered during testing is that if you skimming through an episode — perhaps you stopped halfway through, or want to watch a specific scene — will not have to stop for ads, nor will there be a glut of them to sit through once you reach the point that you want to watch.
Is Prime Video Including Ads in TV Episodes, Movies, or Both?
Surprisingly, during testing, The Streamable was not served any ads while streaming movies, including in pre-roll spots. The only time that commercials were introduced to the experience was before episodes of TV series. We tested both Prime exclusive and licensed films and were never able to generate an ad before or during a movie.
While we would anticipate this changing eventually, it was something of a surprise for that not to be included on Day 1.
Also, there were no Pause Screen Ads during the episodes or movies during our tests, which was also surprising, considering that Prime Video has been using those in various forms for months.
What Types of Ads Are Included on Prime Video?
As mentioned above, in nearly every ad session that The Streamable came across, there were two commercials served back-to-back. The first was for an outside brand and the second was for an Amazon product. In our testing, there was all of the initial brand ads were for national products with no local ads based on location included. So, this was essentially the same as the big brands that you would see advertising during a primetime show on a broadcast network.
Then, the second ad was for some Amazon-related product; generally, always TV or streaming-related. This is consistent with what we have seen on Amazon’s free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service Freevee, which regularly includes commercials for corporate sibling products.
How Much Does Prime Video’s Ad-Free Tier Cost? How Do You Sign Up?
With the introduction of the ad-supported tier on Prime Video, there was no change in pricing for customers. In nearly every other case of a streaming service introducing an ad tier, it was at a lower price point than its premium, ad-free option. However, Prime Video made the decision to transition all current subscribers to ad-supported and to keep them at the same $8.99 monthly rate that they had been paying.
But, for those subscribers who prefer an ad-free experience, Amazon is showing an interstitial pop-up reminding them that they are able to easily upgrade their service for an additional $2.99 per month. They can click on the “Go ad free” button as shown on the screen above, or if they select “Not now,” the option will be available in the menu bar at the top of the page. For more details on the process, you can click here, where The Streamable broke down the process even further.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.