There's not a lot of consistency yet in digital sub and single pricing

The pricing of digital magazines is somewhat helter-skelter compared with the pricing of the traditional print magazines from which they spring. Readers tend to assume that they'll benefit from digital delivery, but that's not always the case.

A post on the blog Canadian Opera asks why the price of a digital edition of Opera Canada magazine (no relation) is virtually the same as the print sub and gives no discount to existing print subscribers. And the price of a digital single copy is $5.95, which -- given that the magazine is a quarterly -- means you could buy the magazines one at a time cheaper than you could by taking a year-long sub.

Here are the relative costs of digital subs and digital singles from a variety of different magazines (data taken from the Digital Newsstand, a joint venture of Magazines Canada and Zinio). Regardless of the frequency, the average cost of a digital single copy seems to be about 26% of the cost of a digital subscription:

Magazine Freq. Digital Sub Digital Single % single Maclean’s 56 51.88 5.03 9.7 Canadian Living 12 23.98 3.99 16.6 Good Times 11 23.00 3.83 16.7 Sky News 6 26.00 4.95 19.1 Cottage Life 6 29.95 5.95 19.9 Opera Canada 4 29.95 5.95 19.9 Vancouver 10 23.95 4.95 20.7 Saltscapes 7 28.19 5.95 21.1 Canadian Gardening 7 22.95 4.95 21.6 MORE 8 20.00 4.5 22.5 Azure 8 25.95 5.95 22.9 Western Horse Review 12 12.99 2.99 23.0 Alberta Venture 12 19.95 4.95 24.8 Outdoor Canada 8 19.97 4.95 24.8 Motorcycle Mojo 8 20.00 4.95 24.8 Wine Access 6 14.99 3.99 26.6 Broken Pencil 4 18.00 4.95 27.5 Queen’s Quarterly 4 20.00 6.50 32.5 Elle Canada 12 12.00 3.99 33.3 Homemaker’s 9 9.95 3.50 35.2 Prairies North 4 15.07 7.00 46.4 Malahat Review 4 20.00 11.95 59.8