Amazon Adds New Essentials Tier to Business Prime Shipping Service


What is the Amazon Business Prime Shipping Essentials Tier and Can It Save You Money?

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When Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced its Business Prime Shipping service in October of 2017, it gave businesses the same convenience it did consumer with unlimited shipping. But the lowest tier of the service started with up to 10 users, pricing out many smaller businesses.

Amazon Business Prime Shipping Essentials Tiers

The new tier, called Essentials is going to allow businesses with up to three users to start using the service for $179 per year. This is much lower than the $499 annual price for the Small tier businesses may have had to choose because they didn’t have another option.

Shipping has become a critical piece of today’s business environment — and not just for ecommerce. Whether a small business is shipping items or receiving them, Amazon Business Prime provides an affordable solution.

According to Amazon, Essentials was created to address the specific needs of small-to-medium sized businesses as well as sole proprietors and startups. With Essentials, companies with up to three users on their Amazon Business account now have a shipping option that is more affordable.

The membership tiers and prices for Amazon Business so far include:

  • Essentials: $179 per year for up to 3 users
  • Small: $499 per year for up to 10 users
  • Medium: $1,299 per year for up to 100 users
  • Enterprise: $10,099 per year for over 100 users

What is Amazon Business Prime Shipping?

Amazon Business Prime Shipping allows everyone on your business account to get unlimited free two-day shipping when making purchases on behalf of the business on eligible items.

Some of the other benefits of the membership include Prime Early Access to deals and more shipping options. In addition to the free two-day shipping, standard shipping is also free. One-day shipping is free on qualifying items for orders over $35 so long as the orders are placed prior to standard delivery cutoff times and are bound for available delivery destinations.

To check whether these delivery options are available for your location or shipping destinations see eligible items and addresses here.

The Convenience of Free Shipping

As a business, you probably purchase many items from Amazon to run your company. So free shipping and two-day delivery are likely a great convenience. Amazon’s new Essentials tier enables more small businesses to take advantage of this service.

Qualify for discounts, special offers and more with a Business Prime account from Amazon. You can create a FREE account to get started today.

Photo via Shutterstock


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Michael Guta Michael Guta is the Assistant Editor at Small Business Trends and currently manages its East African editorial team. Michael brings with him many years of content experience in the digital ecosystem covering a wide range of industries. He holds a B.S. in Information Communication Technology, with an emphasis in Technology Management.

One Reaction
  1. That means that there is now a cheaper option for people who don’t really have a lot of people on the team. That’s great.