Amazon is ending its Prime Invitee program, which has allowed members to share their free shipping benefit with a select number of users outside their household.
The company announced this week that it’s replacing the program with Amazon Family, which will allow members to share a variety of Prime benefits with one other adult in their household and share digital Prime content with up to four children in their household.
Up to four teenagers can also share in Prime benefits, as long as their accounts were created before April 7, when the Teen Login program stopped accepting new signups.
Amazon began notifying Prime Invitee program members in recent days that it plans to end the program on Oct. 1, CNBC reported. Amazon said it would notify invited guests about the change directly by Sept. 5.
The Prime Invitee program originally launched in the U.S. in 2009, but the company stopped accepting new guests in 2015.
“The Invitee program, which enabled sharing of the Prime shipping benefit only, is being phased out, and Prime members can instead share a broad range of Prime benefits with Amazon Family, including: fast, free delivery; access to exclusive deals and shopping events like Prime Day; movies, series, and live sports with Prime Video; Amazon Music and additional digital entertainment; access to a free Grubhub+ membership; and fuel savings at more than 7,500 bp, Amoco, and participating ampm locations,” Amazon said in a statement.
Reuters reported this week that Amazon U.S. Prime signups — during a four-day push in July and the 21-day runup to the Prime Day event — fell short of the company’s target and failed to meet last year’s total number of signups during that period. Reuters cited internal company data.
An Amazon spokesperson noted, however, that during Prime Day and the three weeks leading up to the event, the company saw “record-breaking sign-ups worldwide,” adding, “Prime membership continues to show strong growth and customer engagement in the U.S. and internationally.”
“We continue to see robust adoption globally as we enhance the Prime value proposition through faster delivery speeds, expanded entertainment offerings, and additional shopping benefits,” the spokesperson said.
Prime membership is also up year over year, according to Amazon.
The move comes as other subscription-based services, like Netflix, have sought to crack down on password sharing in an effort to boost paid subscribers.
