Decode the rate card

A rate card is the publisher's printed price list: open rates by unit, frequency discounts, cover premiums. Two vocabulary items unlock it. Open rate: the one-time, no-commitment price, the top of the card. Earned rate: the lower price you reach through committed insertions or negotiation. The card on the Reader's Digest kit opens at $44,331 for a full page^[1]; that is an asking price.

The frequency ladder

Cards quote per-insertion prices at rungs: 1x, 3x, 6x, 12x. Commit to more insertions within the contract year and each one costs less. Two mechanics to respect. First, the ladder is a retention machine: the discount rewards the commitment, and if you under-deliver the schedule the publisher bills back the difference between the rate you paid and the rate you actually earned. That bill is called a short rate, and contracting for it knowingly is Step 07 territory. Second, the ladder is your price-discovery tool even if you buy once: the 12x rate tells you what the publisher will accept per page from someone they trust. That number, not the open rate, is your mental floor entering Step 03.

Gross, net, and the commission line

Card rates are conventionally gross: they build in the standard 15% agency commission. Agencies pay the publisher net (gross minus commission) and the spread is historically how agencies were paid. Buying direct without an agency? You are entitled to ask for net-equivalent pricing, and the worst outcome of asking is learning how the seller handles the question. Get whether quoted numbers are gross or net in writing on every proposal; it is a 15% ambiguity.

Check any quote against the published cells on QuoteCheck, then take the ladder logic into Step 03. The cards we hold are registered in the rate ledger.