Changes at Stack

For a long time now I’ve been telling people that one day they won’t have to rely on PayPal to buy their Stack subscriptions. As far as I can see PayPal is great when it works but absolutely infuriating when it goes wrong, so for the last two years I’ve wanted to introduce alternative payment methods on the site.

And now, finally, it’s happened. Take a look at the Subscribe page and you’ll see that as well as PayPal, we can now also take payment by Direct Debit, credit card and debit card. In short, it’s now quicker, easier and more convenient for people to subscribe to Stack, which is good news all round.

Not so good news (but absolutely necessary) are the price rises that come with the overhaul. I’ve always kept Stack prices as low as possible, but with the cost of postage going through the roof and the increased fees that come with Stack getting bigger, I’ve had to put prices up.

A subscription to Stack is still great value – the average cost of the magazines sent out by Stack so far this year has been £8.49 per month, and the cost of subscribing still starts at £6 per month, or £66 per year, including delivery. It’s also worth saying that I don’t have any more price increases planned – I’ve spent a long time working prices out to ensure that the costs as they are now should see us well into the future.

The final change to note is that starting from this month, we’ll have just one delivery date per month. We used to have two – one at the start of the month and one mid-month – but that has led to confusion about when people should expect magazines to arrive.

From now on there will be one delivery at the start of the month (or as close to the start as we can manage – independent magazines do have a habit of getting delayed at the printer). When you subscribe you’ll be able to choose when you want your first delivery to go out, and from that point on magazines will continue to arrive every month for the duration of your subscription.

It feels slightly strange to be getting excited about a new payment system and price structure, but it’s boring stuff like this that will ensure Stack can keep on going in the future, finding and sending out the best independent magazines in the world. And that’s exciting.