Kindle Unlimited is one of Amazon’s most popular digital subscriptions. It gives unlimited access to over 1.4 million ebooks, including the ones with audiobook companions.
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Since the introduction of the service in mid-2014, the monthly fee was a default subscription mode, but at some point, customers were also able to pick up longer plans: 6, 12 or 24-month long.
In November, I’ve spotted for the first time that the long-term plans have been removed from Kindle Unlimited sign-up page in the US Amazon store.
What’s more, although you can find information about Kindle Unlimited pre-paid subscriptions on Amazon help pages, the links have also disappeared. All previously active links to pre-paid plans or deals on Kindle Unlimited are now blank or return 404 error.
It’s not the end. Kindle Unlimited pre-paid plans were quite popular as a gift. But now, Kindle Unlimited gift page says:
Sorry, Kindle Unlimited cannot be gifted right now.
Amazon claims the gifting will be back as soon as possible, but I doubt it will happen. There is another proof that Amazon doesn’t like Kindle Unlimited pre-paid plans any longer. It’s the deals.
For a few years, the primary model of Kindle Unlimited deals was price drops on long-term plans: 33% off the 12-month or 40% off the 24-month plan.
For the last time, such a deal was offered in July 2018. Since then, already three Kindle Unlimited limited-time deals were running, but none included the subscription period longer than six months.
On Prime Day 2018, Amazon Prime members could get three months of Kindle Unlimited subscription for only $0.99. Apparently, this offer must have turned the largest share of testers into paid subscribers, so Amazon decided to repeat it on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018.
Will long-term Kindle Unlimited plans be back? I doubt so. Kindle Unlimited is attractive so long as you find interesting books. Although the subscription gives access to over 1.4 million titles, you can hardly find among them the hot new bestsellers from the big publishers.
When someone buys the 24-month plan, and after a month or two finds out there are no more exciting books to pick up, she or he may decide to cancel the subscription and try to get a refund. The problem is there is no refund, as this is a pre-paid plan. It’s a straight way to ruin customer satisfaction.
No matter whether you get a monthly fee or get a deal, make sure to check out Kindle Unlimited eligible books before signing up.
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