My wife and I have separate Amazon accounts and we each have a Prime subscription. I think we can save $139/year by dropping one of the Prime subscriptions and sharing Prime via a Household thingie. I’ve read through the Amazon info about Household but I just want to confirm that I understand everything before I pull the trigger.
As I understand it:
- We will pay just one Prime fee instead of two.
- We will still each have a separate Amazon account, with separate order histories, and neither of us will lose our current order history.
- We will have separate Prime Video histories and neither of use will lose our video history. So if I log into Prime Video with my account, I’ll see the videos I’ve watched (with the same suggestions etc that I see now), and if my wife logs into Prime Video with her account, she’ll see her video history.
- (Not sure about this one.) My wife has a Paramount+ subscription but I do not. Will Paramount+ content be accessible to both our accounts after we merge?
Any other advice or experience with Household would be appreciated.
My wife and I have always had separate accounts, but we did add Prime to mine, and add her as a household member, so I’ll share what I know about.
- Correct.
- Correct.
- Unknown, the spouse has never used Prime Video (although I do). I suspect though that you’ll “lose” the video history of whichever account you drop Prime viewing from since it seems to follow the account associated with Prime. I base this on when I gave my father an older Kindle, which was still on my account, but signed in with HIS Amazon account. Some of our choices influenced each other (He’d see a lot of scifi flicks, and I’d start seeing recommendations for a lot of Westerns).
- Per 3 above, if you purge her account, you’ll probably loose the Paramount+ sub/link. AIUI you’re not so much merging as sharing some of the prime benefits across a second, non-prime account. So, if this is important, it may be for the best to cancel your Prime and have her share some of her benefits.
My wife and I have a Household account and pay one fee per year. We each have our sign-on credentials with separate credit cards, order history, etc. This also allows us to share Prime Video with separate video accounts.
On the Paramount+ subscription account, I’m not sure but I believe you should have access if you sign in under her account.
My experience with Amazon Household is unlikely to be relevant for you, but it’s possible, so I’ll summarize briefly.
We moved from the US to Europe several years ago. We both previously had Amazon accounts (independently) on the US site. When we came here, we started using the European sites (.de, .fr, etc.) for local ordering and delivery.
It was a bit finicky getting ourselves signed in. The sites claim there’s one account across all portals, but based on our experience that clearly isn’t true; there’s obviously different databases with some kind of identity and usage replication happening behind the scenes.
The relevant bit for you is that we’ve never been able to get Household to work. Wherever we’re signed in, the site claims to offer it, but we go through setup and then there’s an “unspecified error” or something similarly vague and the process doesn’t complete. Support has been unable to tell us why; they say it “should work” and then just shrug.
So if you’ve only ever used the US .com, you’re probably fine in terms of technical support. But if your usage history has any kind of account complications, good luck.
Mrs. Geek uses my Amazon account, but my daughter has a separate account that is linked to mine.
- Correct.
- Correct.
- My daughter and I have completely separate watch histories. I can’t see her history and she can’t see mine. They don’t merge.
- My daughter purchased a subscription to Starz. I was not able to access it from my Amazon account. So no, your Paramount+ content will probably not be accessible to both accounts.
I can’t see my daughter’s purchases or browsing history or anything else on Amazon. Shipping addresses are available on both accounts. I’m not sure if she can use my credit card for payment or not if she buys something. She has her own card and never even attempts to use mine.
It’s been a long time since I set it up, but I don’t remember it being difficult. We’re in the U.S.
It can be set up as two adults, or you can add teenagers or younger children. I’m not sure what verification goes on with the latter situations but you probably want to run as adults. You can’t share Prime Video with the other adult account, but you can log in to the same (primary) user’s account on different devices and then create separate profiles so your shows and movies don’t mix. You can share some digital content otherwise, and the shipping will be free for the sub-account.