Ryan Dube · September 2, 2021 · 7 min read If you think about all of the groceries you buy every month, surely there are a number of products you could potentially get much cheaper on Amazon. Amazon Subscribe and Save is a useful feature for Amazon Prime members that lets you receive regular shipments of consumable products you buy frequently anyway.
Using Subscribe and Save is easy, and if you use it for enough products, you could actually save a lot of money. In this article, you’ll learn all about how Amazon Subscribe and Save works, and how to set it up for regular shipments of the things you use every day.
What Is Amazon Subscribe and Save?
When you shop for groceries on Amazon, you’ll usually notice that in the purchase section, you have the option to “Subscribe & Save” if you set up a recurring purchase of the same product.
You’ll see in that section that under Deliver every, you can set up the frequency that you want to automatically order the same product.
As you accumulate items that you’ve subscribed to, you can find that list in your Amazon account. Do this by selecting the Account dropdown and selecting Subscribe & Save Items.
This will open the Subscribe & Save page where all of the items you’ve subscribed to are listed. Scroll down to see exactly when the next order will take place and which items will get shipped that month.
This is how Amazon Subscribe & Save works in a nutshell. You subscribe to items and set up the order and delivery schedule.
However, there’s much more to this program. Knowing how to set up the order timing correctly can save you a lot of money. In this article, you’ll learn how to use Amazon Subscribe & Save, and some techniques to achieve the most savings by doing so.
How to Subscribe to New Products
Subscribing to new Amazon products is very easy. Just search for any product you’d normally buy at the grocery store. Most products in this category have the subscribe and save feature available.
You can see this most easily while you’re browsing through the products. Under each product in the listing, you’ll see a mention of the potential “Subscribe & Save discount” (more on how the discount works later).
Select any of these products to see more details. If it’s what you’d like to buy every month, you’ll see the subscribe & save option in the right menu. You’ll need to select the option to enable Subscribe & Save to see all of the additional settings.
These settings include:
- Quantity to order
- Frequency to order the product
- Set Up Now button
Once you’ve selected the Set Up Now button, you’ll have one last option to turn back before you’ve subscribed to this product.
Just review all of the settings (especially the order frequency and “Arrives by” date). If everything looks like you want it to, just select Confirm subscription and your product subscription will be active.
How to Save More with Subscribe and Save
While Amazon’s Subscribe & Save feature is definitely a convenience, you can also get some great savings by using the feature wisely.
If you review your subscription and delivery list in your Account settings, you’ll see that different items on different days feature unique levels of savings.
The reason for this comes down to when you subscribed and what savings was available for that item depending on how many other items you’re subscribed to.
You can see this on the item details page, where you’re able to enable the subscription.
The current savings is highlighted in the Subscribe & Save section. Under this, you’ll see how much more savings you can unlock for this item if you add additional items to your subscription with the same delivery date.
The potential savings for this item might be different than other items, but in general, every item will get discounted even further so long as you’re ordering more items for any delivery.
Here are a few tips to maximize your savings using Amazon Subscribe & Save:
- Organize blocks of subscriptions based on reorder dates (once a month, every other month, etc).
- Subscribe to as many items you buy often at the grocery store anyway to maximize savings.
- Search for products with the highest potential savings with more subscribed items.
Be very careful about which order frequency you choose. You don’t want to order a three-month supply of something every month, or you’ll end up with a surplus inventory that you don’t need.
A great way to do this is to look through your pantry at all of the items you could order on Amazon. Then, closely examine the volume of the same product you can get on Amazon and how long it’ll last you. Make sure to set the delivery frequency as accurately as possible.
You can see how successfully you are on each delivery date because you’ll see those delivery dates highlighted as “Max savings unlocked”.
The bottom line is that the more items you subscribe to on each delivery frequency, the deeper your overall savings will be.
How to Manage Your Product Subscriptions
You can manage all of your existing subscriptions and order frequencies by returning to the Subscribe & Save Items page in your account.
On the most recent, upcoming delivery date, you can choose to skip the delivery of any item that you haven’t actually used up yet. This is a great way to avoid overstocking on an item that you didn’t consume as much of as you expected to.
To do this, just select Skip under the item that you don’t want to be delivered that month.
If you scroll down to future delivery dates, you can also make modifications to any of those items as well.
Just select the link under the item that shows the current delivery frequency of that subscription.
This will open a window where you can modify any of the following details about that active subscription.
- Quantity that you want to order
- How often you want it delivered
- What date you want to set for the first (next) delivery
To change the delivery frequency, just use the dropdown under Delivered every.
You’ll see that you aren’t limited to just a monthly delivery. If it’s an item you use a lot, you can select to have it automatically ordered and delivered in as little as every 2 weeks.
To change the next upcoming delivery date, just select the dropdown under Next delivery by.
The dates will be a month or more out. So just select the next delivery you need based on when you next expect to run out of that item.
Once you select Apply, those changes will immediately take effect and you’ll notice your entire future delivery list update with the changes you’ve made.
Saving Money with Amazon Subscribe and Save
The Amazon Subscribe & Save feature is a convenience that more people really should take advantage of. If you can plan and time your subscriptions and deliveries so that as many items get delivered each month as possible, you stand to save a lot on grocery items you buy frequently anyway.
