Amazon Prime Video’s Ad Bet Delivers 115 Million New Users

Prime Video turned ads on, took heat for it, and then... the numbers shot up. The past year made one thing clear: Amazon bet big on ad-supported streaming, and it looks like that bet is paying off even as the ad breaks quietly get longer.

The reach Amazon wanted (and got)

Deadline says Prime Video's monthly ad reach hit 315 million viewers across September 2024 through August 2025, up from 200 million back in April 2024. That figure covers everything the app serves: originals, licensed movies and shows, live sports and events, plus the free, ad-supported live channels baked into Prime Video.

Prime Video is now pushing ads across 16 countries, which is catnip for brands that want one platform with global scale. Amazon's ad boss Jeremy Helfand put it this way:

"This expanded audience across 16 countries demonstrates our customer-obsessed approach to enhancing the viewing experience while delivering powerful opportunities for brand."

How Amazon made ads the default and lived to tell about it

When the ads rolled out, subscribers were annoyed. Fair: people already pay for Prime. But Amazon flipped the default switch anyway. Ads became standard for everyone, and if you wanted to ditch them, that cost an extra $2.99 a month. Most folks did what most folks do with small, annoying fees: they ignored the upsell and kept watching with ads.

The Prime bundle did a lot of the heavy lifting. The same subscription gets you video, fast shipping, Prime Music, and Prime Reading. That value stack made a few minutes of ads feel like a trade-off rather than a betrayal. And once Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu normalized ad tiers of their own, the resistance cooled. Suddenly this wasn't just Amazon's thing; it was the price of streaming in 2025.

The ad breaks are getting longer

Amazon originally promised a light touch: roughly 2 to 3.5 minutes of ads per hour. By mid-2025, according to Adweek, that crept up to about 4 to 6 minutes an hour. On the high end, that's close to double the early ceiling. It is not cable-level clutter, but you can feel the slope.

The rising ad load is happening alongside higher subscription prices across the board. Ballpark right now: Prime at $14.99/month, Netflix around $17.99, Disney+ at $9.99 with ads or $15.99 without. Content is spread across more services, which means people end up stacking subscriptions. Cue subscription fatigue, cancellations, and yes, some backtracking: a Coupon Cabin study says 22% of cord-cutters have gone back to cable, with another 6% thinking about it.

What viewers are saying out loud

On X, you see plenty of versions of the same complaint: paying for Prime and still sitting through 5–6 ads, sometimes getting 2:30 breaks every ten minutes. Others argue the old cable box with a DVR felt easier than juggling a dozen apps. The vibe is less outrage now and more begrudging acceptance.

By the numbers

• 315 million: Prime Video's monthly ad reach across Sep 2024–Aug 2025 (Deadline)
• 200 million: Monthly ad reach back in April 2024
• 16: Countries where Prime Video runs its ad-supported experience
• $2.99/month: What Amazon charges to remove ads from Prime Video
• Ad load: from about 2–3.5 minutes/hour at launch to roughly 4–6 minutes/hour by mid-2025 (Adweek)
• Prices: Prime $14.99/month; Netflix ~ $17.99; Disney+ $9.99 with ads or $15.99 ad-free
• Cord-cutters circling back: 22% returned to cable, 6% considering (Coupon Cabin)

Where this is heading

Streaming started as simple, cheap, and mostly ad-free. Now it's more expensive and more ad-heavy unless you pay extra, and everything is scattered across multiple apps. Feels familiar, right? Bundles are already creeping back in (see: Disney+ and Hulu), and you can expect more of that.

So, are you paying the extra $2.99 to skip Prime's ads, or just living with the breaks?