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Ars Premier now available in $5 month-to-month subscriptions

Ars adds a new $5 per month Premier Subscription plan.

Last week was an important waypoint here at Ars. It has been just over six months since we launched version 2.0 of our Ars Premier Subscriptions. There's been a steady stream of new subscribers each day, and the program is outperforming our wildest expectations.

Two weeks ago the staff had an opportunity to talk with a wide spectrum of readers about a number of topics. One of the things we took away from those conversations was that many Ars readers wanted to join and support the site directly, but weren't able or willing to put down $50 all at once.

A new subscription payment option had actually been in the works for sometime in April, but due in part to the feedback received from our readers, those plans were sped up to launch as quickly a possible.

Without further ado, Ars is officially adding a $5, month-to-month Premier Subscription to Ars. You'll get all the same benefits as every other Premier subscriptor, including:

  • A compact, ad-free browsing experience. Want to see what it looks like? Check out this sample article with the ad-free layout applied to it. No banner ads, and you still support our ability to keep writing the content you love.
  • Full-text RSS feeds
  • View multipage articles on a single page
  • Access to the Ars PDF library
  • Automatic entry into monthly giveaways
  • Posting access to the Ars Lounge and other exclusive forums
  • Access to regular Ars Live Chats with industry luminaries and Ars staffers

If you've been putting off subscribing due to the up-front payment commitment, this is your opportunity to sign up and show your support for Ars Technica and to help guide the future of the site you love reading each day. Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions or suggestions about Ars Premier Subscriptions or our new $5 per month tier.

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152 Reader Comments

  1. That is a fanstastic image for the article. Nicely done.
    18662 posts | registered
  2. This makes so much sense since I signed up for the 1 year last week, of course you guys would roll this out now! Ahhhh well, still glad I did it, and I'm still glad this option exists now. For people like me who have read this site since the 90s its not so bad to dive right in, for others the monthly will be a great way to try it without committing to a full year.
    1350 posts | registered
  3. in before "if Ars can't modify their business model to pay me to read the articles, I'm just going to keep being a jerk in comments and beg them to block me."

    edit: and definite lol at the picture

    Last edited by artifex on Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:25 pm

    2165 posts | registered
  4. I wish I could pay with PayPal, as I don't have a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.

    Please support PayPal so I can give you my money!
    1438 posts | registered
  5. Oh boy another opportunity to get nickel and dimed to deatb.
    335 posts | registered
  6. nimro wrote:
    I wish I could pay with PayPal, as I don't have a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.

    Please support PayPal so I can give you my money!


    i agree with this comment, i trust you and all but i just feel safer using paypal though i'm still going to buy a 1month subscription without it.
    227 posts | registered
  7. Monthly giveaways? More details about them? Are they available only in the US? Or also Canada?
    328 posts | registered
  8. This is a nice step, but to be honest the Wired subscription would have been the enticement I needed... *if* the magazines could be sent to Canada. I'd be willing to pay more for an Ars subscription if the Wired offer included a Canadian delivery option.

    It seems you have two good technology plays and have already made an effort to bundle them together.. why not open up your offers to your international readers ?
    62 posts | registered
  9. Way to go, Ars. Subscribed.
    612 posts | registered
  10. Control Group wrote:
    That is a fanstastic image for the article. Nicely done.

    I've got a version of it that will start running as a house banner ad soon too. ;)
    22567 posts | registered
  11. saturnblackhole wrote:
    nimro wrote:
    I wish I could pay with PayPal, as I don't have a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.

    Please support PayPal so I can give you my money!


    i agree with this comment, i trust you and all but i just feel safer using paypal though i'm still going to buy a 1month subscription without it.


    Paypal is something we suffered through for 8 years and its not something we ever plan on supporting again, I'm afraid.
    15589 posts | registered
  12. InfoDav wrote:
    Monthly giveaways? More details about them? Are they available only in the US? Or also Canada?


    Generally US only, but sometimes we do Canada. Sometimes it depends on whether or not the company supplying the free stuff is willing to ship there. Other times there are other restrictions. Whenever possible we try to do US and Canada (excluding those crazy people on Québec of course).

    You can troll through here to see the kinds of giveaways we've done in the past:

    http://arstechnica.com/staff/
    15589 posts | registered
  13. ivar wrote:
    It seems you have two good technology plays and have already made an effort to bundle them together.. why not open up your offers to your international readers ?


    ++

    I can understand that the Wired offer might not be viable internationally due to the higher shipping costs, but can international subscribers at least get the refund that is offered if you don't want the Wired subscription in that case, or is the refund also US-only ?
    24 posts | registered
  14. nimro wrote:
    I wish I could pay with PayPal, as I don't have a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.

    Please support PayPal so I can give you my money!

    We very purposefully dropped PayPal support. They're a real pain to work with, they set up their own reoccurring subscription stuff that we can't touch since it's inside your account which means we can't do a lot of helpful customer service stuff, like cancel subs, or tell you how much time you have left, etc. When we used to use it subscribers were always getting caught up in that.
    22567 posts | registered
  15. Seriously awesome pic. :D

    Also glad to see you've rolled this out so quickly. Never let it be said you guys aren't responsive to your readers!
    16942 posts | registered
  16. I guess the Ars Technica staff had a bad past experience with Paypal. I know i've been burned once or twice myself by the service but I do enjoy having access to a payment method that doesn't require me to give out my credit card information on the web.

    Is there an opportunity to roll-out another payment method that is like PayPal but isn't PayPal. Like Google Checkout or Amazon Simple Pay?
    13 posts | registered
  17. By the way, we do realize that lots of our readers are not in the US and can't always take advantage of everything because of that. We're looking into what we can do about that, and we're planning new sub features that won't be tied to world location to try and expand what's available to non-US folks. :)
    22567 posts | registered
  18. Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...
    328 posts | registered
  19. saturnblackhole wrote:
    nimro wrote:
    i just feel safer using paypal

    Wow. That's terrifying actually.
    4605 posts | registered
  20. Doug Dolde wrote:
    Oh boy another opportunity to get nickel and dimed to deatb.

    I can't imagine anything worse than deatb.
    4605 posts | registered
  21. Wudbaer wrote:
    ivar wrote:
    It seems you have two good technology plays and have already made an effort to bundle them together.. why not open up your offers to your international readers ?


    I can understand that the Wired offer might not be viable internationally due to the higher shipping costs, but can international subscribers at least get the refund that is offered if you don't want the Wired subscription in that case, or is the refund also US-only ?


    You can get the refund yes. Some people have indicated though that sometimes it simply costs too much to mail the refund sheet back to conde that its really not worth it. In such a case, personally, I'd be willing to print it out and foot the 42¢ to mail it for you if you really cared ;)
    15589 posts | registered
  22. InfoDav wrote:
    Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...


    I wasn't trying to be offensive, I'm just saying that in every contest form I've ever seen that includes Canada, they explicitly exclude Québec for some reason. No idea why, I was just trying to crack a joke :)
    15589 posts | registered
  23. InfoDav wrote:
    Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...


    http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstake ... Quebec.htm
    4077 posts | registered
  24. You forgot to mention the (hopefully soon to be improved) image hosting for subscribers too! ;)
    4605 posts | registered
  25. I just subscribed! The low monthly payments is an excellent idea. I think this website deserves about $0.18/day. I hope that the next 30 days are full of your usual, well-written news articles. (or opinion pieces)
    40 posts | registered
  26. InfoDav wrote:
    Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...

    It was a joke, but what he's referring to is that Québec has some particular content rules that make a lot of our giveaways illegal to do there, which is why you might be excluded from some of them. :)

    Edit: I see someone already linked the reasoning there, thanks.
    22567 posts | registered
  27. InfoDav wrote:
    Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...

    As someone who in no way officially represents Ars ownership, staff, writers, editors, policy, governance, political views, or taste in movies, allow me to extend to you my sympathies for your emotional fragility.
    18662 posts | registered
  28. Ok, yeah, alot of sweepstakes exclude us for some reason. Yet alot don`t. Sorry I didn`t get it lol.
    328 posts | registered
  29. Aurich wrote:
    We very purposefully dropped PayPal support. They're a real pain to work with, they set up their own reoccurring subscription stuff that we can't touch since it's inside your account which means we can't do a lot of helpful customer service stuff, like cancel subs, or tell you how much time you have left, etc. When we used to use it subscribers were always getting caught up in that.


    Ah that makes sense I suppose. Out of interest, why are only Visa, Mastercard, and American Express supported?
    1438 posts | registered
  30. I could never must up any will to pay 50 dollars, but the 5 dollars sure did make it easier to give it a go. I do realize you its costing me more in the long run. However, I like the freedom I can cut and run any time over losing the 10 dollars.
    103 posts | registered
  31. nimro wrote:
    Ah that makes sense I suppose. Out of interest, why are only Visa, Mastercard, and American Express supported?


    Those are the only cards that were originally setup in the Ars merchant account. I've never really seen a big demand for other types of card, except maybe Discover which I can only recall a single person ever requesting.

    Is there a major card vendor we're missing out on? If its something significant I'm more than willing to try and shake the branches :)
    15589 posts | registered
  32. nimro wrote:
    Ah that makes sense I suppose. Out of interest, why are only Visa, Mastercard, and American Express supported?

    I think we should probably do a post on how the whole payment thing works, and answer some of the frequently asked questions that people have about security and CC practices etc with our subscription processor Spreedly. I'll see what we can do about that.
    22567 posts | registered
  33. ivar wrote:
    This is a nice step, but to be honest the Wired subscription would have been the enticement I needed... *if* the magazines could be sent to Canada. I'd be willing to pay more for an Ars subscription if the Wired offer included a Canadian delivery option.

    Seconded.
    5 posts | registered
  34. Great move, I've been hoping for this for awhile! I will definitely be signing up now.
    281 posts | registered
  35. BTW - If you're reading this with the black theme on you should notice that all the non-animated smiles are properly alpha channeled against the dark background now, I got 24 bit PNGs working this morning. You gotta subscribe for that kind of personal service! ;)
    22567 posts | registered
  36. Aurich wrote:
    nimro wrote:
    Aurich wrote:
    Ah that makes sense I suppose. Out of interest, why are only Visa, Mastercard, and American Express supported?

    I think we should probably do a post on how the whole payment thing works, and answer some of the frequently asked questions that people have about security and CC practices etc with our subscription processor Spreedly. I'll see what we can do about that.


    Transparency for the win.
    831 posts | registered
  37. InfoDav wrote:
    Clintology wrote:
    excluding those crazy people on Québec of course


    Uh? Being from Quebec, I can only find that line very offensive...

    You've got your own batshit insane laws, batshit insane institutions, and batshit insane drivers, most or all of which are wildly incompatible with the rest of Canada. If you want to start getting treated the same as the rest of the country, you can bloody well act like you're part of the country. :p
    7503 posts | registered
  38. Aurich wrote:
    I think we should probably do a post on how the whole payment thing works, and answer some of the frequently asked questions that people have about security and CC practices etc with our subscription processor Spreedly. I'll see what we can do about that.


    Do that as a subscription-only article, and I'll pay $5 to read it. Not that I want you to do that, I'm just saying it would be a valuable article.

    Edit: I didn't notice the smileys until you mentioned, but they definitely look better! Now if you can get the animation for a new/edited comment to work for white on black, all would be right with the world.

    Last edited by bedward on Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:02 pm

    2499 posts | registered
  39. $5 is steep when you consider I get an Ad-free experience with adblocker and the PDFs are available on rapidshare for free.
    62 posts | registered

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