Here is some great news for Canadians! The annual membership fee for Amazon Prime will NOT go up in Canada despite a pending hike for the service in the United States.

The online retailer announced Thursday that the yearly Prime membership for its U.S. customers will go up to $119 US, up from the current $99 US. The last price increase was in 2014, when it jumped from $79 to $99 USD.

The increase will affect new members starting May 11. For renewals of existing memberships, the higher fee will start on June 16.

However, Canadians will keep on enjoying Amazon Prime with an annual membership of $79 CDN, an Amazon spokesperson said. And Canadians can still get a free trial of Amazon prime.

Canadians are excluded from the monthly price increase because all Prime members in Canada pay annually, according to Amazon.

“We don’t have anything to share with regard to pricing change for Prime membership in Canada,” the company said.

News of the price hike came on the same day Amazon posted its first-quarter sales and profit that both exceeded the market forecasts. The company is also expecting a higher second-quarter profit.

Why the hike?

According to Amazon, the increase will cover higher costs of maintaining the program, such as shipping fees.

In January, Amazon increased the monthly fee for a U.S. membership to 12.99 USD a month from 10.99 USD.

There are around 100 million Prime members around the globe, according to Amazon.

What’s included in Amazon Prime in Canada?

Amazon Prime is an annual membership from Amazon.ca that includes shipping benefits, as well as bunch of other perks, such as:

  • Free two-day shipping on qualifying items; that means you get fast shipping all year long without paying any extra for it.
  • Amazon Prime Video. This includes unlimited streaming of the movies and the TV shows that they have available. Amazon now have exclusive TV shows just for Prime members.
  • Amazon Prime Music. This service offers over 1 million songs and hundreds of playlists that you can stream ad free. You can use it with Alexa, on your mobile with the app, or play it in your computer using Amazon music player.
  • Amazon Twitch Prime. With this services, you get free game content every month, exclusive discounts, plus discounts on pre-order boxed video games. You also receive ad-free viewing and a free monthly Twitch channel subscription.
  • Prime Photos. Members have access to unlimited storage for their photos. Now, this is definitely important if the quality of your photos matter to you.. and if you are amassing a massive photo database.
  • Prime Early Access. As a Prime member you get access to Amazon lightning deals and all the sales 30 minutes before anyone else does.
  • Kindle Owners Lending Library. This gives you access to over 800,000 e-Books. One per month that you get for free, but you have to do it on a Kindle device.

For a free month trial of Amazon Prime, click here.