Amazon is taking away your 4K Prime Video — unless you pay more

It wasn’t even that long ago when Amazon Prime Video was still the rare example of a video streaming platform that hadn’t succumbed to the temptation of shoving ads down everyone’s throats. But by 2024, Bezos and company just couldn’t resist any longer, and sullied their once-innocent platform with a $3/month upsell to avoid ads. Now it’s 2026, and since everything keeps getting worse, it’s going to cost you even more to not sit through ads on Prime Video.

Amazon shares that it’s rebranding its ad-free service as Prime Video Ultra, and that’s going to run you an extra $5/month on top of your existing Amazon Prime membership. The new pricing takes effect in just over a month, on April 10.

As if to add insult to injury, not only is ad-free Prime Video going to cost you more, but Amazon is locking access to 4K UHD video behind the same paywall. That includes Dolby Atmos, too, but on the plus side, Amazon’s raising limits on concurrent streams to 4 for regular Prime Video, and 5 for Ultra.

If you want to keep enjoying 4K Prime Video content, you can either start paying that extra $5 a month, or take advantage of the “deal” Amazon is offering to commit to a year of Ultra for $46. Because clearly, poor, suffering Amazon needs your money more than you do.

There has never been a better time to get a Jellyfin setup going.