Walmart+ vs. Amazon Prime

Many online and multinational retailers, such as Walmart and Amazon, now offer subscription-based plans for customers. These plans include unique benefits for subscribed members that are not available to other customers. If you’re struggling to choose between Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime, read on!

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When choosing between Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime subscriptions, it’s important to consider all the different aspects of these premium services. This will allow you to weigh the benefits each offers their subscribers, allowing you to choose the service that appeals to you more!

• Key Takeaways
• Comparing Walmart Plus And Amazon Prime
  • Service Availability
  • Product Selection
  • Grocery Selection
  • Delivery Options And Costs
  • Digital Services
  • Fuel Discount
  • In-Store Advantages
  • Customer Service
  • Free Trial
  • Annual Cost
• Verdict: Which Is better Walmart+ Or Amazon Prime?

Comparing Walmart Plus And Amazon Prime

There are many similarities between the services offered by Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime. Not only that but these services are similarly priced. For this reason, it’s important to consider how these services differ from one another. This will allow you to choose the best service for your needs.

To help you decide, we’re going to make a comprehensive comparison between different aspects of Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime’s services. From the geographical availability of these services to all the benefits they offer, this is everything you need to know about these convenient services.

Service Availability

When comparing two services like Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime, their geographical availability is crucial in determining which is the service better suited to your needs. In the case of these two services, both Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime are available to residents across the United States.

To fully utilize your Walmart Plus service, you’ll need to be living in the vicinity of a Walmart store. Luckily, there’s a simple way to verify your eligibility for membership. Interested customers can simply visit this link to check the availability of Walmart Plus in their area.

When it comes down to Amazon Prime, you’ll want to ensure that you’re in the vicinity of an Amazon fulfillment center, an Amazon Fresh store, or a Whole Foods Store. To check whether you’ll be able to fully utilize Amazon Prime in your area, you can enter your zip code on this page.

Product Selection

With both a Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime subscription, you’ll have access to diverse online product catalogs. However, it’s important to consider the specifics of these catalogs in order to make an informed decision.

Amazon’s catalog includes a whopping 12 million products. However, if sellers on Amazon Marketplace are included in this statistic, the figure rises to more than 300 million products. On Walmart’s online store, there are a whopping 35 million products that are sold. Walmart is also aggressively expanding their third party marketplace which will increasingly grow their catalog over time.

Suffice it to say, both of these services have diverse product catalogs for you to choose from. For this reason, it’s important to consider these catalogs in more detail. For example, will you be able to purchase your day-to-day groceries? If so, how much will the delivery cost you, and how long will it take?

Grocery Selection

As mentioned above, both Walmart and Amazon offer an impressive number of products for online purchase. When opting for a Walmart Plus or Amazon Prime subscription, customers will be able to get a wide variety of groceries delivered right to their door.

While there are many available products, Walmart Plus is particularly geared towards groceries. In the age of social distancing, Walmart’s premium subscription service has made it possible for customers to do their grocery shopping digitally. You can browse groceries from Walmart here.

As mentioned earlier, Amazon Prime members will be able to order groceries through Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods. However, this grocery service is only available in certain cities. To check whether you’ll be able to order groceries through Amazon Fresh, you can visit this link. To check whether you’ll be able to order through Amazon’s Whole Foods Market, you can click here.

I found the grocery delivery was more error-prone with Walmart groceries from personal experience. Amazon generally has less missing items and mistakes than Walmart. Both will miss items or make mistakes, you can’t really avoid that.

Amazon uses employees to deliver the groceries which are trained and paid fairly well at $18 to $24 per hour. In contrast, Walmart, for the most part, uses third party services like Door Dash where drivers are paid less at $11 to $15 per hour and are not trained specifically for Walmart grocery deliveries.

Delivery Options And Costs

When shopping online with Walmart Plus or Amazon Prime, you’ll inevitably need to get your groceries delivered. In this section, we’ll be comparing the delivery costs and options between Walmart and Amazon’s premium subscription features.

Walmart Plus subscribers will be eligible for free shipping and delivery. In terms of shipping, customers will be able to utilize free next-day and two-day shipping, with no minimum fee applying. With a Walmart Plus membership, you’ll never pay for shipping for items that are shipped by Walmart.

For same-day delivery from your local Walmart store, members will be able to browse up to 180,000 products. However, Walmart Plus subscribers are looking at a $35 minimum purchase in order to get free same-day deliveries.

Those with Amazon Prime subscriptions have even more delivery options available to them! Firstly, there are free one-day deliveries offered on more than 10 million products. These items can be found by using the “Get It Tomorrow” filter on Amazon’s website.

Amazon Prime members will also be eligible for free same-day delivery. This is available for more than 3 million products. However, for free same-day delivery, a $35 minimum applies. In terms of same-day deliveries, Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime both require a minimum purchase of $35.

However, there are two more delivery options that make Amazon highly competitive in terms of delivery options offered to members. Firstly, users can utilize the Amazon Day feature, whereby Prime users can add orders to their cart throughout the week. The items in the cart will be delivered for free, with no minimum purchase required, on a day of the week you choose.

Furthermore, in many cities across the United States, Amazon Prime members will be eligible for free 2-hour grocery deliveries. Users will be able to shop a diverse selection of fresh foods and produce. These orders will be delivered within a two-hour window from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods.

In terms of delivery options, Amazon has the upper hand, offering a wider variety of options to suit the needs of different customers. However, in terms of core delivery options and fees, Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime are relatively the same.

Digital Services

When it comes down to additional digital services, such as streaming, Amazon Prime has Walmart Plus beat. Unfortunately, Walmart Prime doesn’t offer any digital content with subscription plans. With an Amazon Prime membership, however, users will have access to additional Amazon services.

With a monthly or yearly Amazon Prime subscription, users will get access to ad-free music streaming, unlimited reading, and unlimited photo storage. In addition to this, a Prime Video subscription is included, which gives users access to a wide variety of movies, series, and live events.

With these digital features, Prime users will have access to hours of entertainment. Whether it’s listening to that new album as soon as it’s released or watching an award-winning Amazon Original production, these additional digital services are fantastic additions to a Prime membership. You can even add HBO, Showtime and other premium channels to your Prime account for an additional fee.

For those looking for something more from their subscription, Amazon has the upper hand here. While Walmart Plus doesn’t offer the same digital benefits as Amazon, there are other in-person advantages offered to Walmart Plus members.

Fuel Discount

As mentioned above, Walmart Plus offers many great in-person advantages to members. One of these benefits is fuel discounts that Walmart Plus subscribers are eligible for. When refueling at over 14,000 locations across Walmart, Exxon, Mobil, Murphy gas stations, Walmart Plus members can save up to 5-10¢ per gallon of fuel.

Of course, Murphy USA is a chain of retail gas stations across the united states. Typically, you’ll find Murphy gas stations nearby to Walmart stores. This makes these fuel discounts a great advantage to Walmart Plus users. At Sam’s Club fuel centers, Walmart Plus members will also be subject to exclusive member prices.

In April 2022, Walmart added over 12,000 participating Exxon and Mobil gas stations and increased the potentional discount to up to 10¢ per gallon of fuel.

Overall, members will be able to utilize these fuel discounts at more than 14,000 locations across the United States. A list of participating locations can be found on Walmart’s website, organized according to state. This is an advantage that will allow you to get more from your Walmart Plus membership whenever you refuel!

In-Store Advantages

As discussed above, Walmart Plus subscribers are eligible for fuel discounts at more than 14,000 locations, which are generally located in close proximity with Walmart stores. However, Walmart Plus members will also have the upper hand in those Walmart stores! Whereas Amazon’s services are predominantly digital, Walmart offers another great in-person benefit to subscribers.

When you sign in to your Walmart Plus account on Walmart’s mobile application, you’ll be able to use their Mobile Scan and Go service. Not only will Walmart Plus members will be able to scan their own items in-store with their smartphone, but they’ll have a contact-free checkout.

This means that you can stay safe when shopping at Walmart, whether that’s online or in-store. As a Walmart Plus member, you’re guaranteed to have a more streamlined experience in-store through your phone. When you’re done, you can pay at one of the self-checkout registers and receive your pass to exit.

The Scan and Go mobile application is available from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

There are some benefits in-store with Amazon, albeit not as much as Walmart. Amazon is working on multiple types of retail locations which similar benefits to Scan and Go but at the time of this writing, they are limited locations around the country.

If you have Whole Foods near you, you can get an Amazon Prime discount on eligible items at checkout by scanning a bar code on your phone via the Amazon mobile app.

Customer Service

When deciding between two services like Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime, it’s important to consider the access you’ll have to customer service. After all, things go wrong with orders from time to time. However, despite these hiccups, premium subscribers should be able to deal with these issues effectively through customer support.

Walmart’s customer service department can be reached via phone or email. If you can’t find the answer that you’re looking for on Walmart’s Help page, then you can call 1-800-925-6278. It is also possible to start a live chat on the Help page by clicking ‘Contact Us’. If you experience any issues as a Walmart Plus member, a customer service agent will be able to help you out!

In an increasingly global world, Amazon understands that the availability of their customer service department needs to reflect this. For this reason, Amazon allows customers to contact support around the clock. Users will be able to contact customer support via phone, email, and online chat 24/7. Amazon’s customer service department can be contacted on 1-888-280-4331.

When it comes to quality of customer service, both have very acceptable outcomes and accessible customer support. Both generally solve refunds, cancellations and other problems quickly.

I believe Amazon is the leader for quality of customer service. Amazon is more forgiving with returning products and supporting the customer ultimately. I also have had zero issues with Amazon following through correctly. On the other hand, I found Walmart to be just as fast as Amazon at refunding or solving general problems. However, more than once, the follow through was botched. For example Walmart would say they would give a refund, and I had to go back a week later to get it refunded a second time.

Free Trial

When comparing similar services, there are many aspects to consider before committing to one. However, being able to actually try a service can help you make the best decision. Thanks to free trials, consumers are now able to test services themselves before committing to the one best suited to their needs.

Both Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime offer free trials to prospective customers. This means that you’ll even be able to test both services before choosing one. However, once we’ve guided you through this comparison, you might be leaning towards one service more than the other. In that case, you can test that one first!

Walmart Plus offers a 15-day free trial for interested customers. Once customers have activated their 15-day free trial online, they’ll be able to try out the various services offered by Walmart Plus. This includes free delivery and shipping!

Amazon Prime offers a longer 30-day free trial. Interested users can activate their 30-day free trial online. During this trial, users will be able to use Prime features such as free delivery and access to digital streaming services. Amazon also offers Prime discounts to EBT card holders, students and more.

Annual Cost

Once your free trial has finally expired, you have two options. Firstly, if the service doesn’t live up to your expectations, you’ll be able to cancel your free trial and lose access to premium features. However, if you want to continue using a given service, you’ll need to switch to a subscription-based plan.

Walmart Plus offers two different subscription plans. Users will be able to select a monthly subscription, which is priced at $12.95 per month. However, there’s also an annual billing option, which works out to $98 annually.

Amazon Prime also offers both monthly and yearly subscription plans. Those interested in this service can choose between a monthly fee of $12.99 or a yearly fee of $119. While Prime Video is included in these plans, users can subscribe to Prime Video only for $8.99 per month.

While the monthly subscriptions of Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime are virtually the same, Amazon Prime costs $21 more dollars as an annual fee. However, this includes access to digital features such as Prime Video and ad-free music streaming.

Verdict: Which Is better Walmart+ Or Amazon Prime?

Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime are both subscription-based services from two of America’s leading retailers. While these services are similarly priced, there are key differences between them. It’s important to consider these when making a choice between these two services.

If you prefer in-person benefits at Walmart stores across the nation and associated gas stations, then a Walmart Plus subscription might be the right one for you. However, if you want to access an endless source of entertainment through Amazon’s digital services, such as Prime Video, then an Amazon Price subscription might be more appealing to you.

If I had to choose one, I’d say Amazon Prime is the winner due to the wider selection, superior customer service and valuable digital products. That being said, having both is a great option too. When you have both you can exploit which store has the lowest price and you get all the additional benefits of each plan.