Subs Price Increase – Why? – Page 2 – Bike Forum

Mark · 2012-11-26T11:35:58Z

If you haven't already picked this up, we are increasing the cost of our subscriptions at the end of this week. I want to explain why and I also want to give you a heads up on how to avoid it. We have more subscribers than we've ever had before. In fact, despite the digital publishing revolution we are surfing along with at the moment, we also have the highest number of subscribers receiving the printed version than we have ever had. Of course all our print subscribers also get all of our digital content too, but still, it's good news for print lovers - Print is not dead! :-) But, print is also still very expensive and is getting more expensive month by month. More print means more physical distribution and that is where the bulk of the cost increases are coming from. paper itself is also getting increasingly more expensive. We've gone down the route of making the mag more tactile and lovely because we know that's what our subscribers prefer, and so far the numbers are suggesting that was the right thing to do. But, physical production and distribution isn't our only cost increase. The fact we are producing content on a daily basis right here on the site and critically, developing all our content for publication on so many new channels (Channels is corporate BS for all the different digital and physical ways we can package up and sell Singletrack)from tablets to desktops - iOS to Android - is creating new costs that we have to bear. This year we have brought the lovely Grace on board as our junior designer. Pumping out content both in print and digitally has massively increased the design work and there's no way we could keep up with the demand with just a single designer. This extra cost of production is compounded by the fact we have a simple policy with our subscriptions that we want you to simply pay once and get everything on everything. We don't want you to have to pay again if you want to read your mag on a tablet. You are subscribing to the content we produce, not the mechanism by which you read it. All of this ads up to make our current prices of £35 for a print & digital subscription and £20 for a digital subscription unsustainable. So we are having to reluctantly put the prices up to make sure we can keep going and developing more and better ways to get our content out to you. That price increase starts at 5pm this coming Friday. After that, if you buy a subscription it will be at the new prices of £39.99 for Print and Digital, £24.99 for Digital and £2.99 for monthly digital access. Yes, that's quite a hike on the existing prices but they are necessary. However, I did mention that there is a way to avoid those increases. 1st - If you are already a subscriber then sit back and relax. We are holding your subscription at the old £35, £20 price for at least another year. So, your next renewal, whether that is next week or a year from now, will be at the old price. 2nd If you are not a subscriber yet then you have until 5pm on Friday to subscribe at the old price. Not only do you get the £35 price but your next renewal a year from now will also be held at that price. So, only NEW subscribers after 5pm on Friday will be paying the new prices. Now, we aren't increasing the prices without offering up some new features at the same time. With the launch of issue 78 next week all our subscribers will also be given optional access to their subscription via the existing iOS app for free via their Premier account settings page. We've wanted to do this for a long time as having subscribers buy a subscription through iTunes has been a barrier to our principal of pay once and get everything. There is a cost to us for that and that is also another reason for the price increases, but we hope it will make our subs options much simpler and clearer. You will simply subscriber here on our site and then if you want it we will set you up with an account in our mag app that will allow you to access your 8 mag issues in the app as well as via our own Mag Archive here on the site. We will also soon be launching our secret project currently code-named '[urlBread[/url]' to our subscribers that we are actually more excited about than the iOS app integration coming next week. But that's all I can say at this stage :-) Announcing higher prices is never easy, but we've thought long and hard about how to do it and also make sure that our loyal subscribers are affected the least by it. Our genuine intention is to sustain what we do and keep on producing the best mag we know how to produce and keep this website and all our digital projects running. I'm still convinced that we offer up the best value bike subscription anywhere and there's much more to come yet. If anyone has any questions then I'll be happy to try and answer them here. Or you can email me directly if you want to discuss anything off forum. T&Cs [url

footflaps

Posts: 13594

Free Member

Still seems good value to me!

Posted : 30/11/2012 1:59 pm

JoeG

Posts: 0

Full Member

It costs us £46 to print and post a US subscription.

😯

Posted : 01/12/2012 1:40 am

wrecker

Posts: 0

Free Member

It's made me a little regretful for cancelling my auto renew. To be honest I don't even read the mag but glad to contribute to the upkeep of the forum. What happens if I turn auto renew back on. Old price or new price?

Posted : 01/12/2012 1:58 am

corroded

Posts: 2628

Free Member

Personally, I think the new print subscription is a bargain. If I wasn't based in Oz for the time being I'd sign up. I have zero interest in a digital sub: I spend my day looking at a screen (including STW now and then) so I'm all about print for my downtime!

Posted : 01/12/2012 6:50 am

mikewsmith

Posts: 52609

Free Member

I dropped to online when I moved over to Oz, then 1 month later went back to print, it's way cheaper than the local mags and worth reading 🙂 and I get to feel smug about the dusty riding a bit more.

Price is still fair guys, I guess there is no Das_Singletrack.de or DX_Singletrack offering a similar product way cheaper 🙂

Posted : 01/12/2012 6:59 am

aidanoggy

Posts: 0

Full Member

Still worth every penny! And a big thumbs up for IOS App integration.

Posted : 01/12/2012 7:49 am

bikebob

Posts: 161

Free Member

Been reading the forums for ages and was getting the print subs for Xmas. Been away and missed the deadline so now it costs £5 more, bugger, Couldn,t you wait till after Xmas? I'm sure I'll still subscribe but probably wait till next year. Unless of course you tempt me with the freebie! But what is it?

Posted : 01/12/2012 9:20 am

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[Closed] Subs Price Increase - Why?