Magazine subscription pricing: print, digital and gifts

A magazine subscription looks like any other subscription until the first issue is late. Then it turns out that readers were never paying for twelve months. They were paying for four issues, or twelve, and they notice when one goes missing. Pricing a magazine well starts from that: you sell issues, some of them printed and posted, some read on a screen, and a fair share of them bought by someone other than the reader. This guide works through the decisions in the order they come up, with one quarterly magazine as the running example.

Three plans: digital, print, and both

Most magazines end up with three plans, and the prices should make sense next to each other. For a quarterly title, say:

Plan	Per year (4 issues)	Per issue
Digital	$24	$6
Print	$48	$12
Print plus digital	$56	$14

Three things are going on in that table.

Digital is the cheap door. It costs you almost nothing per extra reader, so it can be priced to get people in.

Print carries its costs. Printing and postage are paid per copy. If a printed and posted copy costs you $5.50, each print issue at $12 leaves $6.50, and each digital issue at $6 leaves close to all of it. Run that sum with your own printer's quote before you set the print price, and run it again every time postage goes up.

The bundle is an upgrade, not a discount. At $56, print plus digital is $8 more than print alone, a third of what digital costs on its own. The reader who already wants print gets the screen version for a small step up, and you pay nothing extra to deliver it. Price the bundle close to print, not close to the sum of both.

Sell issues, not months

A subscription that runs for twelve months breaks the moment your schedule slips. If the summer issue comes out in September, a reader on a twelve month plan can lose an issue they paid for. A subscription that runs for four issues cannot: it counts down as issues are published and ends when the fourth one goes out, whenever that is.

Counting issues also answers the questions readers actually ask. "How many issues do I have left?" has a clear answer (issue 3 of 4, one to go), and so does "when does it renew?": after the last one.

Digital only readers are the exception. A digital plan can run by the month, because there is no printing schedule to slip. If you offer one, a monthly digital plan at $2.50 comes to $30 a year, which makes the $24 yearly plan 20% cheaper and gives readers a reason to pick it.

Gift subscriptions

Gifts are a large part of how magazines are bought, and they have their own rules:

• The giver pays, the reader receives. The invoice goes to the giver. The delivery address and the issues go to the recipient. Keep the two apart from the start, so a renewal reminder never lands with someone who did not pay.
• Pick a start issue. "Starts with the Spring issue" is what the giver wants to write in the card. Let them choose it at checkout.
• A note travels with it. A short message on the first issue or the first email turns a subscription into a present.
• No surprise renewals. A gift is paid once. When it runs out, ask the giver whether to give it again, and offer the recipient their own subscription. Never charge the giver's card for a second year they did not choose.

Price the gift the same as the plan it gives. A gift print year at $48 is easy to explain; a gift at a different price looks like a trick to one of the two people involved.

Renewal notices before the last issue

The gap between the last issue of one subscription and the first issue of the next is where readers drift away. The fix is timing: ask before the last issue, not after it.

For a quarterly, a workable schedule is:

1. After the third issue ships: "One issue left. Renew now and the next one arrives on time."
2. Before the fourth issue's delivery list is made: a reminder, with the date by which a renewal still makes the next issue.
3. With or just after the last issue: "This is your last issue," with a one click link to renew.

Readers who pay by card on an automatic renewal still get the first notice. It tells them what will be charged and when, which is both polite and the thing that prevents a disputed charge later.

Readers abroad

Postage is what makes a print copy abroad cost more. Price it as its own plan rather than a surcharge worked out by hand. If posting a copy abroad costs $5 more than at home, four issues cost $20 more, and a print plan abroad at $68 covers it. Digital costs the same wherever the reader is, so it can keep one price.

If you sell in more than one currency, give each currency its own price rather than converting at checkout, so a reader sees a round number in their own money. Tax on printed and digital publications differs from one country to the next, and sometimes between print and digital in the same country, so set it up per region and check the rates with whoever does your accounts.

The delivery list

Pricing only works if the right people get the issue. Before each issue goes to print, you need one list: every active print subscriber and gift recipient with a current address, readers who paused left out, and new subscribers since the last issue added. If that list comes from a spreadsheet matched against a payment page, somebody spends days on it every issue, and the mistakes are copies posted to people who did not pay.

What an issue based subscription is worth

For reporting, a yearly subscription still counts as monthly revenue: a $48 print year is $4 a month of MRR, a $56 bundle is $4.67. The free MRR calculator does this sum for a mix of plans, which is useful when you are deciding whether a price change is worth it.

The short version

• Digital, print and a bundle, with the bundle priced close to print.
• Print priced from your printing and postage cost per copy.
• Subscriptions that count issues, so a late issue costs nobody.
• Gifts that bill the giver, start on a chosen issue and never renew on their own.
• Renewal notices before the last issue, not after it.
• A separate print plan for readers abroad.

yRecurring handles the paying side of a magazine: print, digital and bundle plans counted by the issue, gift subscriptions with a start issue and a note, renewal notes before the last issue, and a delivery list for every issue that your printer can use. Readers pay through your own payment account. See how it works in subscription billing for print and digital magazines.