Trick to Get Free Shipping on Amazon Without Having a Prime Membership

free shipping on Amazon

To get free shipping on Amazon purchases, you need either a $99 per year Prime Membership or a purchase of at least $35. No big deal, right? Well, sure; unless you need to order something that only costs $28 and you don’t want to pay an exorbitant amount in shipping fees. It happens. I’m not a big Amazon shopper myself, but I did bite the bullet and sign up for a Prime Membership earlier this year (kind of by accident). Someone told me that I could do a free 30-day trial and that the site was offering a huge discount on diapers. I have twins that are a year-and-a-half, so the idea of a big sale on diapers was appealing. Then I learned all about the discounts you get for being an Amazon Mom member and then I learned all about the discounts I get being a Subscribe and Save member (seriously, big discounts on diapers).

Combine all of that with the fact that my two older kids are involved in every sport under the sun and we are out every night at practices and games, and not home until way past bed time, the only time I get to the store these days is after I drop the kids off at school in the mornings. Now we run into the problem that I have twins and either other moms have taken the double seater shopping cart or the only one available is the one with the broken seat belts and I’m forced to use our double stroller. Not a big deal, except I cannot fit anything of any significant size in the bottom of that thing, so buying diapers and wipes at the store is usually difficult.

So, I signed up for the free 30-day trial, the Subscribe and Save and the Mom program to see if I liked it. I forgot about it, my trial ended, I was charged for the Prime membership and now I’m using it whenever I need anything (seriously, I’m now ordering my Starbucks K-Cups from Amazon because I’m seriously to the point that I would order my tampons and veggies from the site if they’d bring them to me). It works, though, because anytime I need to order something that is not $35, I still get free shipping and I have my stuff in two days. I just ordered a tee shirt that says, “Y’all need Jesus” to wear to a family gathering (I won’t go into detail on that one) and I ordered it on a Thursday night and it arrived to my house on Sunday – and that’s why I love free shipping on Amazon purchases.

If I did not have Prime and free shipping, I’d fall into the trap of ordering more items so that I’d get the free shipping. Because, clearly, spending $16 on a shirt and then spending another $19 to get to free shipping is genius, right? Shipping is all of $7 so that math makes a lot of sense. Either way, I still want my free shipping, so what am I to do? I’m to get free shipping on Amazon without buying a Prime membership or adding more items to my cart.

It’s a different story when you are able to almost fulfill that $35 minimum purchase order. If you’re at the point when you have $33 worth of items in your cart and you want to spend the additional $2 to get that purchase to $35, but you cannot find anything that’s less than $20 you need, you’re going to either spend entirely more than you planned on spending for the free shipping, or you are going to pay for free shipping. If only there was a way to find something on Amazon that would bring your total up to $35 without putting you over. Oh, wait; there is.

Amazon Filler Item Finder

I’m not even kidding; this is real. Anyone can get free shipping on Amazon with this useful and amazing tool, and it’s awesome – it works to the exact penny. Let’s say you have a cart filled with items you need, you don’t want to pay for shipping but you cannot afford to pay for more than $35. The total in your cart is $33.90. You need to spend $1.10 more to qualify for free shipping, and it seems like something that you really do no need to find. You’d head to the Amazon Filler Item Finder site and enter the amount you need to spend to qualify for free shipping and the site will just pull up a list of items you can add to your cart.

The best part? Most of the items that this site pulls up are actually useful. Now you get free shipping and an item you’ll probably use (think toothpaste or dental floss or something of that nature).

Is it Worth It?

If you want to purchase items and get free shipping on Amazon throughout the year without a Prime Membership, it can be worth it. You’ll have to wait to make orders until you get close to the $35 range, and you’ll need to probably make around 40-50 purchases a year assuming you’ll need to spend approximately $1-$3 on filler items each time you make a purchase to meet the equivalent of a Prime Membership. If you only shop Amazon a few times a year, this is probably the cheaper route. If you buy 5 orders a month, you might just want the free two-day shipping the Prime offers customers.

As long as your free filler item is one you’ll use (cleaning products, hygiene products), you’ll find that this is a worth-it attempt at getting free shipping on Amazon purchases throughout the year.

Photo by Getty Images

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