“The magazine publisher has sold some 95,000 digital copies of its June issue at $4.99, the same price the ink-and-paper edition commands,” Kafka reports. “So why sell the July issue at $3.99 — while also knocking down the price of the first issue to the same level?”
Kafka reports, “Conde says it will be experimenting with digital magazine pricing for months to come. But Wired editor Chris Anderson, who wants us to know that he doesn’t control his magazine’s sales price, makes the common sense argument: Digital editions should cost less than physical ones because there’s no distribution cost.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What do you think? Still too much?
Still stupid greedy marketing plan making them far less money than when they set it at $0.99 a copy at which point their total subscribers will skyrocket making them far more money per issue than any of the previius issues. The boss should fire their marketing director. He’s an idiot. They’re losing millions of dollars each month by not starting at $0.99 each.
I paid 12$ for a year of cycle world on Zinio. So I’m thinking in the 12-20$ a year range for subscriptions
I can subscribe to AD-FREE magazines, books, blogs on my Kindle without an app, pay nothing for 3G service and pay LESS. All organized and in one place. I can read HHS content on my desktop or my Kindle. No mother hen bans on content either.
The price of $3.99 is still way too high for digital media. I agree with $.99 as fair market price. At the current $3.99 I will never buy an issue. I sit with Wired download on my iPad but I won’t get an issue until the pricing is fair. Same thing with Time Magazine. They have priced themselves out of the market for digital media as far as I’m concerned.
$3.99 is $2 to $3 more than what a single stand alone issue should cost. Subscription pricing should be even less than that!
The sweet spot is $1 per issue for a disposable item where the user has paid for the enabling device and service. Don’t forget, reading the first issue of Wired costs the user $500 for the iPad plus $40/month for internet connectivity. Yes, they might avoid the connectivity cost by going to McDonalds or the library, and yes, they probably use the iPad for (a lot) more things, but the point stands, if they didn’t spend the ~$540, they wouldn’t even be able to read the magazine.
I agree that it’s ridiculous for digital publications to cost the same as the printed versions. There are virtually no costs for printing, transporting and distributing the digital versions. And the cost of planning, writing, layout, etc. has already been covered by sales of the print edition—making high-priced digital alternatives a bloody rip-off in spades.
However, publications that are only published in digital format are a different story. The selling price has to cover the production costs, and the creators are entitled to make a profit. Not all digital content is created equal.
@lurker:
Interesting and valid point. Digital publishing is clearly in its infancy.
I’m thinking 1.99 to 2.99 per issue price or $15 – $20 Annual.
Also they do have distribution costs, Apple takes 30% to cover these, that should be much less than it costs for printed material.
I purchased the first 1 but have not really had the time to explore it.
Bought the first at $5.
Not again until it’s the same or less than my print sub ($12/yr).
Agree with others on multiple points:
1. Subscription pricing please!
2. Only willing to pay $2 to $3 max for a single issue
3. Hate individual apps (combine with Zinio)
4. Huge download at over 500MBs!
5. Lastly, I know it’s hopefully a one time headache for the update, but I live in a more rural area that limits me to 20 gigs of download data a month, so to have to reload the original issue at 500MBs is a real bite in the ass!!! Fail!
Not getting my $4 for the second issue.
Still waaaay overpriced, u greedy bums. No thanks.
How about 59 cents?
Interesting, my local library offers Wired for no out-of-pocket expense to me. I see very little reason for a glorified PDF to cost as much as a real magazine, which has real cost of paper, printing, and distribution on top of the content/development price.
a penny per page of real content for a digital magazine seems reasonable.
$3.99 for an ad-laden PDF seems like highway robbery.
$1.99 would be more appropriate.
Still too much, you’re forgetting materials cost. By selling the mag digitally at the same price as physically, you’re effectively doubling the consumer cost for no valid reason. The 90,000+ people who paid full hard-copy price for the digital version did not think before acting on their [dumb] impulse, to the benefit of the publisher.
I don’t think that a Digital issue has to cost less or much less than a print issue. Publishers are strained and their margins aren’t very high. Give them some room so we can keep them. I don’t mind paying $4 for a digital magazin, or a print. In Swedish SEK it’s more than half the price you would normally pay for a printed computer magazine from news stand.
$4 os cheap. But $2.99 would be the killer deal I think.
Sid Blonde
they are not doubling any cost for the consumer. Are you joking?
What they are doing is just to increase their margins. The publishing business needs to make some money too. Only because they have found a waht to lower their cost and increase their margins doesn’t mean they have to pass that saving on to the consumer eroding their margins again. 3-4 dollars for one issue is nothing, really. But of course 2.99 would be the ideal price I think.
If Apple finds a smart way to save cost does not mean they have to pass that on to the consumer. They run a business they always try to find ways to make more money. This is just a phsycological issue for some people because we know digital is cheap…
Bought the first. Cool stuff.
When it reaches the price of my print sub, $12/yr, then I’ll buy another issue. Until then, Conde Nast has lost a subscriber to all of their mags.