Joined Nov 2011
L1: Learner
Forum Thread
Amazon Subscribe & Save: What does this do?
April 9, 2026 at
10:03 AM
Thread Details
Obviously subscription has some connotation that I may/will be eventually billed for something.
But, in Hot Deals, many Amazon threads have your check or pick the Subscribe & Save option to stack discounts. What does this do, exactly? What is the charge? I suspect I will need to go into my Amazon account | Subscriptions and turn this option off before a possible charge.
Coincidentally, today, my credit alerts notified me of Capital One application. Googling Amazon subscribe and save Capital One does return some hits that indicate this may be the result of opting for Subscribe & Save.
Thus, what does this Amazon option do? I googled this and it seemed to point to a business account, which I didn't proceed with...
Thank you!
But, in Hot Deals, many Amazon threads have your check or pick the Subscribe & Save option to stack discounts. What does this do, exactly? What is the charge? I suspect I will need to go into my Amazon account | Subscriptions and turn this option off before a possible charge.
Coincidentally, today, my credit alerts notified me of Capital One application. Googling Amazon subscribe and save Capital One does return some hits that indicate this may be the result of opting for Subscribe & Save.
Thus, what does this Amazon option do? I googled this and it seemed to point to a business account, which I didn't proceed with...
Thank you!
About the OP
3 Comments
Your comment cannot be blank.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
They don't have any way to do that on your behalf. I do not recall that happening, but no doubt it has at some point.
The most common SD "trick" to using S&S to your advantage is to order the first shipment for the SD deal price, and set the following delivery to be 6 months out as your next scheduled delivery date. It does not really matter, though. Once your shipment is sent (I wait until it arrives), you can cancel future deliveries of the item up to a few days before the next scheduled shipment. Each month, they send you an email a week to two before you are committed to the next shipment. But I would not depend on that. I check my next month's upcoming shipments after I receive my current monthly S&S order. You can manage all your future shipments in advance this way by hovering over Account and Lists at the top right, and then clicking on Subscribe and Save Items [amazon.com]
Amazon will not guarantee future shipment pricing!
As mentioned already in the other comment, that is the catch to S&S.
So if you allow future shipments to come, they will ship at the current pricing when they are shipped. No coupons will attach then. What you paid the first time is not relevant.
So, for some regularly needed items priced fairly and with stable pricing, that may be fine to leave the subscriptions active. But for SD-listed deal items, that is not typically the case, since these deals often are especially low based on coupon use, temporarily lowered pricing, or both.
Another tip for using S&S is that often Amazon defaults to the first shipment of any item you are adding to S&S to be fast delivery instead of with your next scheduled S&S monthly delivery. You have to watch out for that, and when it happens, you change that delivery date to the regular monthly S&S date option.
The main reason to do this bundling together is that for the months you order 5 or more S&S items, you will get an additional discount on all (or most) of them (some items are excluded from this bonus).
Typically, the discount can go as high as 15% instead of the usual 5% discount.
Some items can only get 10% max, some max out at 5%, or can go from no discount to 5%. They use a lesser-discount system for certain items.
If you are getting close to 5 items already, but running out of time before the next shipment, many SD'ers will find a cheap "filler" item to subscribe to, in order to obtain the magical 5-item minimum.
Something like a can of corn, a bag of dried beans, rice, or whatever, can be a great deal for $1-$2 while saving you much more overall for the upcoming shipment.
And confirming that this [probably] did not trigger the Capital One application my credit protection alerted me for.