Amazon is changing what Prime Video subscribers get with their standard membership, and the biggest shift is one that home theater fans will notice right away. Starting April 10 in the U.S., 4K/UHD streaming on Prime Video will no longer be included with the regular Prime Video benefit. Instead, it will move into a new premium add-on called Prime Video Ultra.
That new Ultra tier replaces Amazon’s current ad-free option and raises the price from $2.99 a month to $4.99 a month. Along with ad-free viewing, Ultra will now be the only way to get 4K/UHD streaming on Prime Video. It also adds Dolby Atmos, up to five concurrent streams, and up to 100 downloads for offline viewing.
For regular Prime members, Amazon says the core Prime Video benefit is not going away and the price of Prime itself is not changing. Subscribers who stay on the standard plan will still get access to the same library of shows, movies, and sports, but the premium viewing features are being split off. The standard version will include HD and HDR, plus Dolby Vision, up to four streams, and up to 50 downloads.
That makes this less about Amazon adding a brand new feature and more about moving an existing one into a higher-priced tier. For many subscribers, that is the real headline. 4K has increasingly felt like a baseline expectation for major streaming services, especially on a platform pushing originals like Fallout, Reacher, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Now Amazon is treating it as part of a premium package instead of a standard perk.
The move also continues a broader trend that has been building across streaming for a while now. Services are not just getting more expensive. They are carving up features that used to feel standard and using them to justify new pricing tiers. Amazon already shifted Prime Video toward ads in 2024 unless users paid extra. This latest change takes that strategy a step further by tying higher picture and audio quality to the more expensive plan.
From Amazon’s point of view, the company is framing this as a way to support premium streaming and stay in line with the rest of the market. From a customer’s point of view, it is one more example of streaming getting more complicated and less generous than it used to be. If you care about 4K picture quality, the practical takeaway is simple: starting April 10, staying on basic Prime Video means giving it up.
Sources: Amazon About Amazon
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