What Happened to Amazon Underground?

Amazon Underground is gone. Amazon launched it in August 2015 as an Android app program that made certain paid apps and in-app items "actually free," then shut it down in stages starting in 2017 and finished winding it down in 2019. Today, Amazon's active app platform is the Amazon Appstore, not Underground.

Table Of Contents

What Amazon Underground was

At launch, Amazon described Underground in its official 2015 launch post as an Android app experience built around free apps, games, and in-app items, with developers paid by usage time. Amazon's archived Underground legal schedule shows the model more precisely: eligible developers could be paid a per-minute royalty while Underground apps and in-app products were free to end users.

When Amazon shut it down

Amazon's current public docs do not surface a live Underground help center, but contemporaneous reporting on Amazon's official shutdown notice remains consistent. TechCrunch's April 28, 2017 report says Amazon stopped accepting new Underground submissions on May 31, 2017, ended access to the Underground Actually Free store through the Appstore for Android in summer 2017, and kept Fire-tablet support running until the end of 2019.

Does Amazon Underground still work today?

No current Amazon developer documentation lists Underground as an active product surface. Instead, Amazon's current Appstore documentation hub points developers to the Amazon Appstore for Fire OS and Vega OS devices, and the current Appstore SDK overview covers standard features like DRM, in-app purchasing, and sign-in support.

What happened to apps people already downloaded?

The archived legal schedule says Amazon could continue giving existing end users access to Underground apps after those apps stopped being available through the program. The 2017 shutdown reporting says previously installed apps remained usable during the wind-down period. What matters now is the present-day reality: Underground is no longer an active store or enrollment path.

What exists instead

Question	Current answer	Evidence
Can you sign up for Amazon Underground today?	No.	Current Amazon Appstore docs no longer list Underground as an active program.
Does Amazon still run an app platform?	Yes.	The Amazon Appstore documentation hub and Appstore SDK docs are current.
Is the replacement a like-for-like free-app giveaway?	No.	Current Amazon materials focus on normal app distribution, DRM, and in-app purchasing rather than the old Underground royalty model.

If you are looking for the same kind of deal today

The important distinction is that Amazon Appstore is not Underground under a new name. Underground's defining feature was the "actually free" structure and the per-minute developer payout model documented in the launch post and the archived developer schedule. Current Amazon Appstore materials instead describe standard app distribution and monetization tools.

What to do now if you found an old Underground article

Do not assume an old Underground download link still represents a live Amazon offer.
If you want an app today, check whether it exists in the current Amazon Appstore or another supported store.
If a guide promises Underground freebies in the present tense, treat it as outdated.

Bottom line

Amazon Underground was a real Amazon program, but it is a past program. It launched on August 26, 2015, began shutting down in 2017, and was fully wound down by 2019. If you are trying to use it now, the practical answer is simple: you cannot join or browse Underground today, and you should look at the current Amazon Appstore instead.