Lots of people are already buying Alexa and using them inside their house. Indeed, Alexa is helpful for most people, which is why they love buying it. However, how much does Alexa cost? Let’s check it out!
How much does Alexa cost? The Alexa voice assistant is free to use, and you don’t have to sign up for anything or pay a fee. Alexa only costs you money if you buy an Echo or Fire TV device ($20–$100 each) to use it with or if you pay for a premium service (music, security, etc.).
In this article, I’ll explain to you how much Alexa costs, including what you get for free, what you have to pay for, and how much it will cost to set up a typical Echo device. You’ll also find some of my favorite ways to save money on your Alexa smart home.
Is There A Monthly Fee For Alexa?
The Alexa voice assistant does not have any monthly fees or subscription costs at this time. You could download the Alexa app to your phone right now and try it out without ever having to pay anything.
For Alexa to be most useful, you need an Echo smart speaker or a Fire TV device. I’ll talk about how much these devices cost in a minute, but most of them will cost between $20 and $100. The most expensive gadgets may cost up to $250.
What’s Included With The Free Alexa App?
The Alexa app and Echo devices can do a lot without any extra subscriptions or fees. They are always adding new features, but here are a few examples of what Alexa gives you for free:
- Shopping lists: You can add things to your lists and manage them by speaking or using the app. Alexa organizes your list, lets you know when you have the same thing on it, lets you share it by text, and makes it easy to buy everything on Amazon.
- Control of smart home devices: Alexa can control a growing number of devices. With the recent addition of a Zigbee controller, Alexa is probably the most powerful voice-controlled smart hub that doesn’t require a subscription fee.
- Timers and alarms: One of Alexa’s best features for your smart kitchen is its ability to set named timers. If you have more than one timer set, “Meatball timer is done” is much more helpful than the usual timer sounds.
- Notifications: Alexa will keep an eye on your Amazon packages and let you know when they’ve arrived. You’ll also get alerts when there are emergencies or bad weather. Just tell Alexa, “Give me my morning briefing,” and she’ll tell you some short bits of news and the weather. You can also ask her about the weather when you’re getting ready to leave.
- Questions and answers: Alexa has pre-programmed answers and can answer many different kinds of questions based on information from the web. Some of my favorite things to look up are how to change measurements when cooking and random facts about famous people.
- Communications: Alexa can act as a home intercom that lets you talk to your family through devices that work with Alexa. You can even use Alexa to make phone calls or have her call the Alexa devices of your friends.
What Do You Have To Pay For With Alexa?
Some “skills” for Amazon Alexa, which are like apps, do need separate subscriptions. Most of the time, these are apps for security and monitoring services or apps that stream music or videos.
With an Amazon Prime membership, you can use your Alexa device to access Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, and other Amazon services. This is not a required subscription, but having Prime will help you get more out of Alexa.
If you already pay for a streaming service, you can usually use their Alexa skills for free. But you may find that only the paid levels of some music services work on Echo devices. For example, only people who pay for Spotify Premium can use it with Alexa.
Here are a few popular choices and how much they usually cost:
- Alexa Guard is a popular way to keep your home safe since Alexa can’t call 911. It costs $4.99 per month.
- Spotify Premium is a music service that costs $9.99 per month and has more than 70 million songs.
- Amazon Prime Video is Amazon’s own video streaming service. It costs $8.99 per month or is free if you have an Amazon Prime membership. You can watch it on the Echo Show or Fire TV.
Again, though, you don’t have to sign up for any of these. Alexa doesn’t have any hidden costs. Once you have your Echo device, you don’t have to pay anything else to use most of its features and services.
How Much Do Alexa Devices Cost?
  | Echo Dot (3rd Gen, 2018 release) - Smart speaker with Alexa - Charcoal | $39.99 | Check On Amazon | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
  | Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Charcoal with Mandalorian The Child stand | Check On Amazon | ||
  | Echo Dot (4th Gen) | Smart speaker with Alexa | Twilight Blue | $49.99 | Check On Amazon | |
  | Echo Dot (4th Gen, 2020 release) Kids | Designed for kids, with parental controls | Panda | $59.99 | Check On Amazon | |
  | Echo (4th Gen) | Spherical design with rich sound, smart home hub, and Alexa | Charcoal | $99.99 | Check On Amazon |
How Much Is An Echo Speaker?
Echo devices act as smart home hubs, where all of your smart home devices can be controlled. All Echo devices, even the cheapest ones that cost around $25, have the same basic control options.
Devices that cost more usually have either better sound quality (like the Echo Studio’s awesome 3D audio) or a touchscreen built in (like on the Amazon Echo Show). The smart display on the Show makes it a much more useful hub, with features like video calling and monitoring of security cameras.
The newer Echo devices are a little bit more expensive, but the extra cost is worth it because of what they can do and how well they sound. For an extra $10–15, you can make sure your setup will work in the future.
For example, the 4th-generation Echo has a Zigbee hub built in, so it can control even more smart devices without the need for extra equipment. The 5th-generation Echo Dot has an accelerometer that lets you control it with gestures.
How Much Is A Fire Stick?
Fire Sticks are one of the most affordable smart TV options, starting at about $20–$30. Most of the time, these devices are used for entertainment, but they also work well with Alexa.
Even the cheapest Fire sticks have Alexa, but the Fire TV Cube is the only one with a full Alexa speaker, making it a replacement for the Echo. You have to hold down a button on the remote or talk to a separate Echo speaker to talk to a Fire Stick. On the other hand, the Fire TV Cube can listen for voice commands and answer from the Fire Cube itself.
The most important differences between Fire TV devices are the quality of the sound and whether or not they support 4K and HDR. The Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite only have 1080p, but the Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and Fire TV Cube all have 4K and HDR.
If you don’t have a 4K TV, I’d choose the regular Fire TV Stick because of the price difference. But if video quality is important to you, I’d recommend the Fire TV Stick 4K or Fire TV Cube.
The Fire TV Stick Lite also has a less useful remote and worse video quality than the other devices. I think the extra few dollars for the Fire TV are worth it just for the convenience of being able to control your streaming services with the same remote that controls the volume and turns on and off your TV.
Lastly, performance is the main difference between the Fire TV Stick 4K and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. If you get annoyed when an app takes a few seconds to load, get the Max. If you want to do more than just basic streaming, the small price difference is easy to explain (like running a Kodi or Plex server).
Third-Party Alexa Devices
To use Alexa as a hub, you don’t need a product made by Amazon. They’ve given Alexa to some other smart speakers, like the Sonos One, which is one of my favorite high-end alternatives.
Most of these other Alexa-compatible speakers cost more than the Echo, but they have better sound quality to make up for it. If you want a device that has good sound quality and an Alexa hub all in one, these are great choices.
You can connect Echo to any bluetooth speaker for a cheaper alternative. Even the cheap Echo dots have a 3.5 mm line-out port, as do most Echo speakers.
How Much Does Alexa Cost?
All of the prices listed above are for one device. That’s a great place to start, but most people will eventually want to put Alexa devices in more than one room for more convenience and safety.
Most people who have a smart home will only use one of the devices that cost $50 or more in a central room, like the living room or kitchen, and will use the $20–$30 devices in the other rooms.
This is how a typical set-up might look:
- Echo Show in the main room (from $50 to $100)
- Echo dots in 2–3 bedrooms, garages, or other rooms ($50–150)
- A $20–$50 Fire Stick can improve the TV in the living room.
These prices are for Alexa devices by themselves. In the future, you may want to add things like smart lights, smart plugs, and smart appliances to your setup.
One of the best things about setting up a smart home is that you can do all of this over time. To start with Alexa, you can pay as little as $20 at first. From there, you can save a little money here and there or splurge when you find something really useful or cool.
Final Thoughts
Alexa is a great way to get started with smart home technology because it has a free app and low-cost devices. It’s easy to use and very powerful, so it’s a device that can grow with you as you build the best home automation system.