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Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU) received a price increase in 2023 that raised its subscription fee from $9.99 per month to $11.99. While the book lending service gives you access to a catalog of over 5 million titles, paying basically $12 a month to do so is a pain, especially in this economy. Worse, those costs are wasted if you’re too busy to expand your membership in the first place. The good news is that there are ways to get Kindle Unlimited for very little money, sometimes half price, or even free.
To be clear, you don’t have to get a Kindle Unlimited membership or pay a monthly fee to keep using your ereader. You can simply buy books from Amazon or another marketplace, which you can send to your device. This service is great to have if you’re a voracious reader who can’t manage to collect a ton of titles every month or want to check out the types of books you can avoid spending money on.
Share a single subscription with someone using Amazon Family
Amazon Family, formerly known as Amazon Household, allows you to share premium benefits and digital content with one other adult and up to four children, as long as they have the same residential address. If you live with another adult who likes to read, you can simply split the cost of one account and pay $6 each. To use this feature, you must go to the Amazon Family portal and select Add an Adult to send an invitation to another person. You’ll have to “share wallets,” meaning you’ll both be seeing the last four digits and expiration dates of each other’s payment methods, to prove you’re living together.
Once that’s done, you can start sharing books. On the home screen of the Kindle app, select “Share your Kindle content” and select your subscription partner. After that, you can choose the books you want to share with them — or they can choose the books they want to share with you. Of course, the downside of this method is that only the primary Kindle Unlimited account holder, or the person who signed up for the membership, can borrow books. Don’t forget that the two of you will also have to split the maximum download limit of 20 titles at a time if you don’t read the same things.
If that’s not a problem and your book preferences are the same, you can turn on automatic sharing by selecting “Share Future Purchases and Unlimited Titles Automatically” under “Share Your Genre Content” on the app’s home screen. That will automatically send the titles you borrow to your friend’s Kindle. Just be aware that if the account owner returns the book, it will also disappear from all Family members’ devices when connected to the Internet.
Take advantage of credit card discounts and rewards
Credit card companies sometimes run Kindle Unlimited promos. They are not always available, so you will have to check your credit card portals, your monthly statements or emails from your providers. Chase, for example, sometimes offers a 20 percent discount on service that will shave off $2.40 and lower the fee to $9.60. Bonus: If you share your account and split the money equally, each of you will only pay $4.80.
Amazon Prime Visa and Amazon Visa credit cards offer small cash back rewards for Kindle Unlimited membership. Every time you renew or pay for KU, you can get 5 percent (60 cents) back with a qualifying prime membership or 3 percent (36 cents) back without it. If you apply for the new Prime Visa or Amazon Visa, however, you’ll get a $200 and $50 Amazon gift card, respectively, that you can use to pay for Kindle Unlimited.
You can also check your credit card’s rewards portal to see if you can redeem points for Amazon gift cards or you can pay directly with your points. Chase, Amex, Citi and Capital One all have rewards programs that let you pay with points when you check out at Amazon.
Don’t forget to claim your free trial
You can usually get a free 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited when you sign up, but Amazon sometimes runs promos that give you access to the service for longer than that. As part of Prime Day this June, Amazon is offering a free three-month subscription if you’re a new member.
If you just bought a new Kindle, whether it’s a Scribe or an older model, check its landing page to see if it comes with a free 3-month Kindle Unlimited subscription. Kindles don’t automatically come with a free subscription, so be sure to scroll down to the “Offer Type” section in Amazon’s device listing and select “3 Months of Kindle Unlimited” before purchasing.
Those three months start as soon as you place your order. The good news is that you can start reading KU titles on the Kindle app before you even get your new reader. Also look for special promotions, because Amazon sometimes includes new Models with four to six months of free KU membership instead of just three.
Always look for returning subscriber discounts
Like any other company, Amazon will try to keep you paying for their product if you try to leave. If you try to cancel your membership, you may receive a promotional price for the service that is good for the next few months. You can also get an offer for months down the line for discounts of up to 50 percent to try to get you to sign up again. Be sure to check the Kindle Unlimited site regularly for potential discounts. I have an expired subscription, and I see an offer for a two-month membership for only 99 cents.
AmazonGift (or get a gift) subscription
Granted, this won’t drop the price of Kindle Unlimited much, but hey you’ll still get $1 off per month if you buy a 12-month gift membership. You can send these to people you know who like the service, and maybe let your loved ones know that it would be a good gift for you, maybe? However you receive the gift, make sure you use it using the email entered in your KU account.
Cancel your membership before it expires
This is just a reminder that if you use any of our tips above to get a discounted subscription, don’t forget to cancel your membership before Amazon charges you $11.99 after your promotional rate expires. Go to Accounts and Lists in the upper right corner of the Amazon website and select Kindle Unlimited from the drop-down menu. You can cancel your membership there and check for new deals or wait for offers to arrive in your inbox.
