Amazon will charge US Prime members variable fees for Amazon Fresh grocery delivery orders under $150 from February 28, dropping free deliveries on $35+ orders
here's how to avoid them Carrie Mihalcik / CNET : Amazon Fresh Grocery Delivery Is Going to Cost More Starting Next Month The Information : Amazon Fresh Hikes Grocery Delivery Fees Bethany Biron / Insider : Amazon will start charging Prime members up to $10 in delivery fees on grocery orders under $150 Tweets: Matt Day / @mattmday : Getting Food to your Doorstep is Expensive, Cont'd: https://www.bloomberg.com/... Gotta think “free grocery delivery on orders of $35+” was among the most valuable Prime perks. Bar's a lot higher a month from now.
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon’s Fresh delivery economics have repeatedly been folded into and pulled back from Prime: it removed the separate Fresh monthly charge in 2019, then added a nationwide Whole Foods delivery fee in 2021. The new fee schedule raises the free-delivery threshold from $35 to $150, making grocery delivery a less universal Prime benefit.
The move also reverses AmazonFresh’s earlier expansion of free Prime grocery delivery across roughly 2,000 U.S. cities. It shifts the immediate choice for Prime shoppers toward larger baskets or paid delivery rather than treating frequent small orders as included.
First-order effects
- Prime members placing Amazon Fresh orders below $150 face variable delivery charges from February 28, while shoppers able to consolidate orders to $150 retain free delivery.
- Amazon Fresh gains a direct way to recover delivery costs from lower-value orders, replacing the prior $35 threshold for free delivery.
Second-order effects
- The $150 cutoff gives Amazon Fresh an incentive to steer grocery baskets upward, while Whole Foods delivery’s existing fee shows Amazon is applying a broader paid-delivery model across its grocery offerings.
- Prime’s grocery proposition becomes less differentiated for customers who relied on frequent $35-plus Fresh orders, increasing the importance of delivery pricing rather than membership status in their ordering decisions.
Third-order effects
- Amazon’s grocery strategy is moving away from subsidizing delivery as a blanket Prime perk and toward charging according to order economics, after earlier experiments with both a standalone Fresh membership and free Prime delivery.
- If Amazon continues separating grocery delivery from core Prime benefits, membership may function more as access to grocery services and targeted subscriptions than as an automatic waiver of every fulfillment cost.
The trend: Amazon is recalibrating grocery delivery from a broadly bundled Prime benefit toward thresholds, fees, and subscriptions that better align service access with fulfillment economics.