5 Reasons Why a Kindle Unlimited Subscription Isn’t Worth It

Amazon Kindle devices are more popular than ever. They provide access to a vast number of books available for a fraction of the cost of a physical copy. And ebooks result in far fewer dead trees, which is a good thing.

Entertainment subscription services have skyrocketed in popularity since 2020. People are less concerned with owning their media outright and are increasingly numb to DRM issues.

Therefore, you’d expect a subscription service like Kindle Unlimited to be awesome. It’s the best of both worlds, right? But Amazon’s promise of over a million ebooks for just $9.99/month isn’t necessarily worth it. Here are some reasons reviewing why.

1. Kindle Unlimited Has a Poor Selection of Books

Amazon likes to trumpet that Kindle Unlimited has more than one million books available for subscribers to read. And while that figure is accurate, you’ll rarely find any bestsellers or popular books on the list.

None of the major publishing houses have made their books available on Kindle Unlimited, at least in the States. In the UK and Australia, HarperCollins had admittedly made a small section of its backlist available.

But in Kindle Unlimited’s biggest market, there’s no Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, or Simon & Schuster (acquired now by Penguin). If you have a favorite author, there’s a good chance their work is published by one of these “Big Four,” formerly the Big Five, which together fuel approximately 60% of American book sales.

There are roughly 1.5 million books available on Kindle Unlimited. Of those, at least 1.3 million books are Amazon Exclusives. This means they’re not available for sale anywhere else; in other words, they’re all self-published. That leaves only a narrow minority of non-exclusive books. That’s not to say you won’t find great titles available on Kindle Unlimited, but you won’t have many popular books to choose from.

A large portion of these are also self-published, but some are likely to be from small publishing houses.

One of the reasons to buy a Kindle is to read more from your favorite, most popular authors. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with self-published books and success stories like Twilight and The Martian show, there are some great books to be found, and the lack of many books from popular mainstream authors is a problem. Most people don’t have the time or the interest to dig through the heap to try and find the next The Martian. You probably want to know that the books you’re reading are well-written, properly edited, and entertaining.

The other side of this is that even if you love reading indie titles, you’ve probably got a few major authors whose work you want to read too. For most people, Kindle Unlimited simply can’t replace buying books.

If you want to pick up the latest George R.R. Martin or Bill Bryson titles, you’ll have to buy them in addition to your Kindle Unlimited subscription. This means that the subscription won’t be worth it for the average, mainstream reader.

2. Kindle Unlimited Is Expensive

Although $9.99/month may sound pretty reasonable for all-you-can-read ebooks, it’s actually quite expensive when you consider the price of the titles available.

The vast majority of self-published books on Amazon sell for less than $5. Many are less than $3, and some are even less than $1. This means that to make the $10 subscription price worth it, you will need to read quite a few books a month.

If you only read the most expensive titles you can find, reading two books a month will see you saving some money, but you’ll most likely have to read three or four to make a saving. While plenty of readers can get through a book a week without any hassle, the temptation to read non-Unlimited books is going to be high.

Looking at the selection and the prices, it’s hard to see many people being well-served by a Kindle Unlimited subscription. If you like self-published books, you can easily pick up two or three a month for less than Unlimited costs, without the recurring payments. That way, you can be far more flexible with how you spend your money.

And don’t forget, there are lots of places to find Amazon Kindle books for free if you know where to look.

3. Kindle Unlimited Requires an Internet Connection

The best thing about the Amazon Kindle is that, unlike your phone, it doesn’t need to be charged every night or constantly connected to the internet to be useful. If you use Kindle Unlimited, you lose some of this flexibility.

With Kindle Unlimited, you can have 20 books checked out at once. This admittedly sounds like a lot, but it simply isn’t enough for an extended period away from Wi-Fi for some readers.

That means that at some point you will be off hunting for a way to connect my Kindle to the internet.

4. Amazon Prime Is a Better Deal

If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you have access to Prime Reading. You can only take out one book a month, but if there are a few titles you want to check out without paying for them, it’s a decent way to do it.

The catalog available to borrow from is smaller than the Kindle Unlimited one, but it generally has much better books, which editors select. This means the price is more likely to be worth it.

Amazon Prime has lots of benefits, and it can be useful to sign up even without the free ebooks on offer.

Unless you’re ripping through self-published Kindle Exclusives, an Amazon Prime subscription costs less and offers countless other benefits like free shipping, great Amazon Prime TV shows, and the underrated Amazon Prime Music streaming service.

5. Other Ebook Services Are Better

While Google acquired Oyster, Scribd is still around, and for $11.99/month, you have full access to a catalog comprising over half a million books. You’ll find books from bestselling authors like Stephen King or Walter Isaacson available for you to download.

You can’t use your Kindle to read books you take out on Scribd—you need to use a web browser or an iOS or Android device—but that seems to be a reasonable trade-off for access to a far better library. If you want to sign up for an ebook subscription service that’s actually good, Scribd might be a better option than Kindle Unlimited.

Wait for the Larger Publishers to Join Kindle Unlimited

Kindles are amazing, and ebooks are the future. And while Kindle Unlimited might not be the best option for everyone, there are plenty of other ways you can get more out of your e-reader.

On paper, Kindle Unlimited is a great idea, but it’s probably not worth it for most people. It’s always going to lack the books most people want to read until the “Big Five” publishers come on board.