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Amazon is introducing 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options in addition to the standard free same-day delivery option in certain markets, although the speedier choice comes with a fee.
The new choices offer:
- One-hour delivery: $9.99 for Prime members, $19.99 for non-members.
- Three-hour delivery: $4.99 for Prime members, $14.99 for non-members.
“These new delivery options save customers time by bringing the selection typically available in local supercenters straight to their doorsteps,” said Amazon in a statement.
“From everyday essentials like pantry items, cleaning supplies, health and beauty items, and over-the-counter medications, to other popular categories like electronics, toys, clothing and accessories, and home and garden, we’re creating more opportunities for customers to shop Amazon when and how they want.”
One-hour delivery is currently available to customers in “hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S., including parts of major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Houston, and Washington, D.C., and smaller cities such as Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; and American Fork, Utah.
Three-hour delivery is offered in over 2,000 cities and towns, including cities as well as surrounding suburbs like Cornwall, Pennsylvania; Harrah, Oklahoma; and Arabi, Louisiana.
Amazon Expands Array of Delivery Options
The 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options leverage Amazon’s same-day delivery offering, which was launched in 2015 and reaches more than 9,000 cities and towns across the U.S. Amazon said it achieved “record-breaking speeds for the last three years” in overall delivery with the help of predictive AI inventory placement algorithms, specialized delivery vehicles, and a further streamlining of picking, sorting, and fulfillment processes.
“We saw an opportunity to use our unique operational expertise and delivery network to help make customers’ lives a little easier while unlocking even more value for Prime members,” said Udit Madan, SVP of worldwide operations at Amazon.
Amazon continues to improve delivery times, recently noting that U.S. Prime members in 2025 received over 8 billion items the same or next day, an over 30% increase compared to the prior year -- with groceries and everyday essentials making up half of the total items. In December, Amazon began testing Amazon Now, a 30-minute delivery option for household essentials and fresh grocery items in parts of Seattle and Philadelphia.
Among competitors, Walmart said in its fourth-quarter earnings call that it offers store-fulfilled delivery to 95% of U.S. households in less than three hours.
Target in December began testing new fulfillment models for overnight delivery of online orders in a bid to speed up delivery and improve the in-store experience by reducing in-store pickers. All the major retailers are also all experimenting with drone delivery. A McKinsey survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers last year still found on-time delivery ranked as more important to their satisfaction than speedy delivery, while cost was the No. 1 factor when assessing e-commerce deliveries.