Last summer, Amazon partnered with the pay-it-later service Affirm. This would give customers the ability to buy something now and pay in installments. The service has been in a testing phase for the past six months and it is now rolled out. It is now possible to buy the all-new Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Oasis or the entry level Kindle and buy a small monthly fee. In order to pay the monthly fee, there is a checkbox above the “one time payment” option, above “add to cart.” If you somehow miss that, the option can be engaged when the product is in your shopping cart and if you view the cart.
Would you be more likely to buy a Kindle if you could pay in monthly installments? The Kindle Paperwhite retails for $139.99 and this comes to 5 monthly payments of $28.00. If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you get an additional 25% off the monthly fee. So, the savings can be significant. When you checkout and pay, you are only charged the first monthly fee and every 30 days, Amazon automatically rebills the credit card that they have on file and send you an email, letting you know they charged you and what the remaining balance is.
The monthly installment plan for Kindles is only available in a couple of countries, such as Canada and the United States. The additional savings on Kindle Unlimited appears to be only available in the US. I have heard that later this year it should be launched in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.