Keen to tap into the billion-dollar savings that a community of Amazon shoppers enjoy? It might be as simple as opting for Amazon Subscribe & Save - a service that delivers your favorite products right to your doorstep on your schedule.
But is it worth the hype, or simply another gimmick to get you to pay? We spoke to real Subscribe & Save users and savings gurus to uncover the pros and the cons, helping you make an informed choice for your next Amazon order.
The good news is that unlike becoming an Amazon Prime member, there is no additional fee to use the Subscribe & Save option, and it’s available for literally thousands of products — everything from toilet paper and pet food to groceries and your favorite toothpaste. Amazon even lists their best-sellers for you all on one page. All you have to do is:
Shop from the eligible products.
Select the quantity and schedule that you prefer.
Create your subscription and wait for your goods to arrive at the designated day you selected.
If you’re buying four or fewer products, you’ll automatically get a 5% discount on each product. But an invaluable insider tip? Always have at least five items in your auto-delivery, which unlocks 15% off your entire order. If you don’t really need five items, but still want to get that great discount, think creatively about filler items that only cost $1 or $2. Amazon doesn’t care if your fifth item costs $50 or is a $2 bottle of nail polish. As long as you have them arriving on the same delivery date, Subscribe & Save will drop the price of all the products in your delivery.
“The best tip is to use cheap "filler" items to bring down the cost of your more expensive subscriptions,” said Rachel Singer, who blogs about coupons and savings at Mashup Mom. “It may seem counter-intuitive, but think of it this way: Adding a couple of $1 items can help get you up to five items in your Subscribe & Save order. If that lets you save 15% off a $25+ item instead of 5%, you've basically gotten the cheap fillers for better than free.”
Fortunately, shopping from Subscribe & Save isn’t one of the exclusive benefits only available to Amazon Prime members. However, you don’t luck out with the two-day delivery like you would get with a normal Prime order. The idea behind Subscribe & Save isn’t instant gratification, but rather to eliminate making a bunch of smaller orders by instead lumping them together to arrive on a predictable schedule.
For example, let’s say you have a delivery date set for the first of every month. If your order includes Starbucks k-cups, you won’t see them until the first of the month since you opted to have a monthly subscription. But if running out of coffee is a reason to panic (trust us, we get it), you can still get the Subscribe & Save discount by changing your delivery date — this is found in your account settings. If you need it immediately, you’ll only get a 5% discount. If you’re okay with waiting an average of a week, you can still claim the 15%.
The steps are simple:
Go to Manage Your Subscriptions.
There’s a blue link on the Deliveries tab with your auto-delivered frequency that you’ll want to click on (weekly, monthly, etc.)
This opens a new page where you can make the changes, whether it’s a quantity, a date, or the frequency.
Simply hit “Apply” and you’re good to go.
Subscribe & Save isn’t designed to make you buy things you don’t need. You’re already going to be buying essentials like toilet paper and toothpaste, so you might as well be getting a discount on your order.
“The biggest advantage to Subscribe & Save is the initial savings,” said Peter Chatfield, founder of Household Money Saving and deal-finding expert with more than 50K Facebook fans. “Nearly all items give a 5% discount right off the bat, and I don’t have to keep the subscription. Sometimes I’ll make an order and then cancel the subscription after the item arrives. But 15% off for subscribing to five or more items is quite a hefty discount.
“In general, I've found Subscribe and Save to be cheaper than supermarkets, especially for laundry and personal care products,” he added. “And that’s even after supermarkets have run their own promotions.”
Another big draw is getting free shipping, even if you’re not a Prime member. While you don’t get the convenience of two-day shipping, planning ahead means you can get that $8 bottle of shampoo delivered with no cost.
Not only do you not have to worry about getting the essentials you need on a regular basis, but you’re also not committed to a fixed schedule. If you know you’re going to need dish soap every month, you can choose that as your frequency. Only need moisturizer once every three months? You have the flexibility to put that on the schedule.
“Although the biggest advantage to Subscribe & Save seems like it would be cost savings, for me it really helps simplify running a busy household,” said Marlene Srdic, Amazon influencer and blogger at Life with Mar. “You're always going to need essentials like dishwasher detergent and toilet paper and Subscribe & Save puts all of these little household chores on autopilot, and you're saving money! Some of my favorite items have been the not-so-obvious things we run out of, like contact solution, cat food, or refills for our air purifier. No more having to run to the store at the last minute!”
And while Subscribe & Save does involve automatic shipments, you’re not locked into that date. Before your order processes, you receive a notification, which is your chance to alter or cancel the order if you want to make changes.
“Subscribing does provide a lot of convenience,” Chatfield added. “It’s much easier for me to have large packs like washing powder and fabric conditioner delivered to my home, rather than having to collect them from the supermarket each month.”
Yes, cost savings are a benefit, but you still have to be a savvy shopper. Amazon generally offers competitive pricing, but sometimes they’re considerably higher than you might find by shopping at stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, or even the dollar store — making the
Subscribe & Save discount pretty much non-existent. Also, there can be a bit of a learning curve.
“To maximize your Subscribe & Save option, your deliveries have to be on the same weekly schedule,” Srdic said. “So keep an eye on your subscriptions (it's in the settings) to make sure you're unlocking maximum savings. If you don't have each item scheduled to deliver together, you won't unlock the max 15% savings. This can be tricky when you have different delivery schedules when one item comes every six months and another every four weeks.”
Similarly, you’re not guaranteed the lowest price with every order due to Amazon price fluctuations. An item could be $15 when you sign up and $19 in a couple months down the road. What was initially cheaper with Subscribe & Save might now be a less competitive price than you could find in your grocery store.
“I had a subscription for laundry detergent which was initially much cheaper from Amazon compared to the supermarkets,” Chatfield said. “But the price crept up each month. Within six months, the price had gone up by over 20% and it was more expensive than buying it offline. Amazon usually lets you know of price changes, but it’s still something you need to keep an eye on.”
“Subscribe & Save can be frustrating, because the price is only locked in for the first shipment you receive,” Singer added. “Any shipments after that will come at the current Amazon price, and if you've spent any time on Amazon at all, you know that their prices can fluctuate wildly. If you don't keep an eye on the prices, you might get sticker shock on later shipments.”
The key to success? About a week to 10 days before your delivery, Amazon will send you a reminder email to check your subscriptions. This is the time to look for any changes in price — and also to see if you have new coupons or deals you want to add to your order — and you’ll never be charged more than the price shown in your reminder email.
Unfortunately, you can’t always get what you want all of the time. While Amazon will send you a list of substitutions, you have to have a backup product listed for that specific Subscribe & Save item, which can be done on your “Manage Your Deliveries” page. If you don’t, or that item also isn’t available, you won’t get anything for that item shipped to you at that time.
“Some months, an item I’m expecting will be out of stock,” Chatfield said. “That means I need to find something else to make sure I receive the full 15% off.”
The good news is you aren’t charged unless they ship you an item, so you’re not paying for anything you won’t get. Plus, you can often request that an item is shipped out to you when it’s back in stock — and Amazon will send email status updates and keep trying to ship to you for up to two weeks after your delivery arrive-by date — but sometimes it can cause an inconvenience you were hoping to avoid.
Along with using coupon codes, you can also save even more by directly clipping Subscribe & Save coupons on Amazon. You can find them by looking for the little box up by the price on the product page. While the discount will depend on the item, many offer up to 40% off your first order. After that first order, get to stacking those coupons to really get the most bang for your buck.
“Be sure to watch for Subscribe & Save coupons and special offers,” Singer said. “These stack with Subscribe & Save savings, and even better, your Subscribe & Save percentage off applies to the pre-coupon price of the item. Note that coupons only apply to the first shipment, so be prepared to cancel if the non-coupon price doesn't meet your expectations.”
Let’s say you’re buying toilet paper and Amazon is offering a 15% off Subscribe & Save coupon. If you stack it with a 15% off Subscribe & Save discount, you’re actually getting a 30% off discount on the single-item price. Just remember to clip the coupon in order for it to apply, as it’s not automatically added to your order.
But, there’s some fine print.
Subscribe & Save coupons only come off the first shipment of an item.
They also only come off a single item.
When they hit their limit and/or expire, the coupons are removed from the item’s page.
Those coupons can only be used once per Amazon account.
You can cancel or skip a delivery at any time. To do so:
Head back to Manage Your Subscriptions.
Click the Skip or Cancel link next to the subscribed product you don’t want or that you want to skip.
Click Confirm.
We’d recommend bookmarking this page, because it can be difficult to find via Amazon’s navigation. Remember to cancel at least 10 days before your scheduled delivery, and to cancel each item individually.
Is Amazon’s Subscribe & Save a good idea? To get the most out of the service, you have to figure out what items you use the most, when you usually need them, and vigilantly check before each order ships to make sure you’re actually getting a good price. If you’re not on top of your orders though, you can overbuy, and even risk being overcharged,
But if you do your deal-finding research and plan ahead — and take advantage of additional savings — it can save a significant amount of money. Since there is no fee to use Subscribe & Save, it’s certainly worth giving it a shot.
Found this information useful? Check out this guide on similar autoship discounts for different sites, as well as our tell-all guide to Amazon coupons.
Abby Heugel is an award-winning writer and editor who has done everything from managing retail trade magazines to working with clients like Meta, Lyft, Instacart, Shopify, Indeed, Amazon, Payoneer, Forbes, and Google. With a background in professional writing, proofreading, e-commerce, and retail, she’s committed to crafting the information that helps brands and consumers solve problems and make informed decisions, whether it's about buying a new computer or trying the best vegetarian recipe.
