Sharing is caring—unless you’re talking about Amazon Prime. Starting October 1, Amazon is pulling the plug on its long-running Prime Invitee Program, the loophole that let users outside your household piggyback on your free shipping perks.
For years, the Invitee Program allowed Prime members to extend shipping benefits to just about anyone, no questions asked. But that’s about to end. From next month, if your Prime perks are going to be shared, they can only be shared with people who live under your roof.
The change aligns with Amazon’s "Family" program, which bundles shipping and digital benefits together but limits them strictly to members of the same household. So unless you’re splitting rent and utilities, your free ride is over.
Amazon says the number of people affected is fewer than 1% of U.S. Prime members. Still, that’s hundreds of thousands of people who are about to lose their free shipping privileges. Considering Prime costs $14.99 a month or $139 a year, that’s not pocket change.
The timing isn’t accidental. A Reuters report revealed that Amazon’s July Prime Day promotion fell short on new sign-ups—about 116,000 fewer than last year. Yet Amazon spun the event as a record-breaker, claiming "more items sold" than ever. Ending a free-sharing program might just be one way to coax more of those freeloaders into becoming full-paying subscribers.
For now, Amazon isn’t budging. The Invitee program, launched in 2009 and closed to new sign-ups in 2015, officially sunsets at the end of September. After that, the only way to share your perks is to add family members to your Amazon Household—and yes, the fine print says "primary residential address."
So if you’re mooching off a Prime account outside your home, the message is clear: start paying up or start paying for shipping.