Last Call For Renewals!

[Re-posted from earlier today]

Today is the Dish’s first anniversary of going independent on our own site with our own company. We launched for real on February 4, 2013. And that’s when I, along with a large swathe of you, started my subscription. Today it expires, and sooner or later, if you haven’t yet renewed, you’ll have the irritating prospect of being blocked by our meter system. We always promised transparency so here’s the state-of-play of the last thirteen months as of this lunchtime:

As you can see, we matched January 2013′s total in January 2014. Actually, we beat it by a smidgen last Friday night. That’s a pretty extraordinary result and an amazing start for the year. But it’s not enough to sustain us for the year ahead with even last year’s budget and February remains a critical month for us, as you can see from the graph above. More to the point, we know there are many of you out there who subscribed last January and February and who’ve understandably been putting off renewing until you absolutely have to. I get that, because it’s the kind of procrastination I’m pretty good at myself. But the moment when you actually have to renew in order to avoid any future interruptions is now here. Today is the last day you can simply renew your subscription and never get your reading intercepted by our meter. After today, you can still subscribe, of course, but you’ll have to start again as a new subscriber.

So if you’ve been procrastinating on this but always intended to renew – and we totally understand why – count this as a friendly nudge to get it over with. It’s a truly simple and quick process, and you can get it done in a couple of minutes tops. Take a moment to ask yourself what the Dish is actually worth to you over the year – and plug it into the renewal box. It’s still only a minimum of $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year – but many renewing subscribers have picked price points more tailored to them. It could be the double chai option of $3.60 a month; or a pledge to support our coverage of the marijuana legalization debate at $4.20 a month; or a decision to back this new model for online journalism by upping your subscription to $100 a year (541 hardcore Dishheads have so far); or just a simple renewal at the same minimum price as last year. Our most popular price point right now is $25 a year; but the $50 a year is our fifth most popular, and our average price this year is still around $37.

We’ll leave it to you to create a price point tailored to you. And we’re thrilled to have you along for the ride at whatever price point you can afford. But today is the last day you can simply renew and avoid any future hassles or interruptions.

So renew here! Renew now! And make sure your Dish reading experience is never interrupted again.

Update from a new subscriber:

Yes, I was a straggler. Part of it was procrastination. Part of it was just wanting to push you to the edge (sorry!). Part of it was money struggles. But today I put fifty bucks into your till because, frankly, you’re irritatingly worth it. And I really don’t want to miss Deep Dish.

Keep up the good (yet sometimes infuriating) work. Thanks to you, Andrew, and the entire team. You help keep me sane.