If you’re attracted by the goodies being offered during the Prime Day sales, but you haven’t signed up for Amazon Prime, don’t worry — Amazon makes it very easy. (As you’d expect, it’s the sorry vendor who makes it difficult for people to become new customers.)

Prime Day is, of course, a once-a-year event. Amazon has come up with a bunch of features to entice people to sign up to its Prime service. These include: access to Prime Video, the streaming video service; free two-day shipping on purchases (with same-day delivery for some items); Prime Music audio streaming (not to be confused with the more extensive Amazon Music Unlimited, which is an additional $7.99 / month); online photo and video storage; Prime Reading, which gives access to a library of comics, books, and magazines; and, last but certainly not least, you get a 30-day free trial.

Here’s how to sign up:

Go to https://www.amazon.com/amazonprime and click on “Try Prime”

Choose which plan you want. The basic plan lets you sign up for the service at $12.99 / month or $119 / year, which comes out to a little under $10 / month. You can also sign up here for Prime Video alone at $8.99 / month, but you won’t get to take part in Prime Day.

If you don’t already have an Amazon account, you’ll need to make one, so click on “Create your Amazon account” and set one up with your name, email, and password. We strongly recommend setting up two-factor authentication for your account as well.

On the next page, Amazon will verify your account by sending what it calls an OTP (One Time Password) to your email. Go to your email, copy the OTP, paste it in the Amazon page, and click on “Verify.”

You’ll then be asked to enter your credit or debit card information

And you’re done!

Find the best Prime Day deals! Learn how to spot the best Amazon Prime 2019 deals here.

Lower-cost Prime

Before you sign on the dotted line, however, be aware that there are a couple of ways you can take advantage of Prime without paying the full price — if you qualify.

If you’re a college student, you can sign up for Prime Student, which comes with six months of free Prime membership, after which point, it costs $6.49 / month.

If you’ve got a Medicaid card or an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which means you’re getting aid from government assistance programs, you can get a Prime membership for $5.99 / month.

There are other ways you can take advantage of Prime Day without paying the monthly fee. Is it your birthday soon? If you have a generous friend or relative, they can gift you with a Prime membership for either three months ($39) or the full year ($119).

And, of course, you can always sign up for a Prime membership, take advantage of the free 30-day trial, and then cancel it after the Prime Day sales are over. But you may regret that decision next year when Prime Day comes around again.