Walmart bundles Sam’s Club Plus with Walmart+ for $120 a year
Walmart introduced a combined Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus membership priced at $120 a year. The company says members who purchase the plans separately would save about $100 annually with the combined option.
AI-assisted synthesis · Based on 5 outlets' reporting · Article text read from 1 of 5 outletsHow it's made
View timeline · 5 entriesWhat happened
Key facts
- Walmart launched a joint Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus membership (per news9.com, gurufocus.com).
- Walmart says the combined plan saves about $100 annually compared with buying the memberships separately (per news9.com).
- Walmart CEO John Furner said the offer is intended to give members savings and convenience (per news9.com).
The brief
Walmart has introduced a combined Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus membership priced at $120 a year. The company says the offer would save members about $100 annually compared with purchasing the two memberships separately. The plan brings the two memberships together under one annual price, according to News9.com.
Walmart CEO John Furner described the offer as a way to provide savings and convenience. In a statement quoted by News9.com, Furner said the company was raising expectations for what a membership could provide, including more savings and time for members.
The statement gives Walmart’s rationale for the plan; the reported annual saving is the company’s comparison with buying each membership on its own. News9.com reports that existing Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus members can combine their memberships for the $120 annual price.
The outlet’s excerpt also describes the combined offer as including discounts, free delivery and streaming perks. These details are part of News9.com’s account of the plan and its listed benefits. The membership announcement follows an earlier pricing move mentioned in the same report.
In August, Walmart Chief Financial Officer John Rainey announced price cuts across a range of products, including food. News9.com does not connect those product reductions directly to the new membership, but places both developments in its coverage of Walmart’s pricing and value offers.
The report also cites a recent CBS News poll in which nine in 10 Americans said prices were the most important factor shaping their economic outlook. That finding provides context for the importance consumers place on prices; it does not establish that the poll influenced Walmart’s decision.
The company’s stated case for the membership is the savings and convenience it says the combined plan offers. The joint membership was also reported in headlines from WGRZ, GuruFocus, Traders Union and CNBC. Their headlines characterize it as a new joint membership option; GuruFocus’s headline also states the $120 price.
News9.com’s account supplies the specific claimed annual savings and identifies Furner’s statement as the company’s explanation of the offer.
Why it matters
- Walmart says members who buy Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus separately could save about $100 a year through the $120 combined plan.
- The combined membership links two named services—Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus—under one annual price.
- John Furner identified savings and convenience as the offer’s intended value for members.
- The report cites a CBS News poll finding that nine in 10 Americans considered prices the most important factor shaping their economic outlook.
What to watch next
- Whether Walmart provides further details about the combined membership’s benefits beyond the discounts, free delivery and streaming perks described by News9.com.
- Whether Walmart reports how many members choose the combined $120 annual plan.
- Whether Walmart announces additional product price cuts after the reductions John Rainey announced in August.
How it's being covered
Coverage analysisShow details5 source articles · 5 unique outletsOutlet political mix: Center Only· 5 CenterWhere the outlets are based: US/Canada 40% · Unknown 40% · Other 20%
- Coverage is currently concentrated among Center-rated outlets (5 of 5 rated sources); comparatively few Left or Right-rated outlets have published on the event.
How outlets' accounts compare
Timeline
Developments from this story's sources, dated background we compiled and fact-checked, and our earlier coverage. Each row says which.- Walmart had opened its first store in Rogers, Arkansas, on July 2, 1962.Background · from our historical context
- Walmart acquired the warehouse chain in 1983, bringing the two retail operations under the same corporate owner.Background · from our historical context
- Sam Walton opened the first Sam’s Wholesale Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma, on April 7, 1983, extending the warehouse-club model through bulk sales to members.Background · from our historical context
- The wider retail precedent for annual memberships included Amazon Prime, which Amazon introduced in the United States in 2005 with shipping benefits.Background · from our historical context
- When it launched in 2020, Walmart positioned the program around delivery, fuel discounts and other services, rather than access to Sam’s Club.Background · from our historical context
How we got here
Walmart had operated Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus as separate paid membership programs before the combined offer. Walmart introduced Walmart+ on September 15, 2020, with benefits including delivery and fuel discounts; Sam’s Club had introduced its Plus tier in 2018, adding benefits to its standard warehouse-club membership.
Sam Walton opened the first Sam’s Wholesale Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma, on April 7, 1983, extending the warehouse-club model through bulk sales to members. Walmart had opened its first store in Rogers, Arkansas, on July 2, 1962. Walmart acquired the warehouse chain in 1983, bringing the two retail operations under the same corporate owner.
Original sources
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