Magazine cover ad cost

Covers are the only inventory a magazine truly runs out of. Second cover (IFC, inside front), third cover (IBC, inside back) and fourth cover (the back) price at premiums over ROP, run-of-press, the ordinary inside pages. The cards on our ledger keep those premiums off their public pages, so no percentage appears here. The mechanics below do not change from book to book.

The pecking order

• Fourth cover (back). The most expensive page in the book. It works face-up on coffee tables, in waiting rooms, in the mail. It is the only ad seen by people who never open the magazine.
• Second cover (IFC). First ad impression on opening; often sold as a spread with page one. Premium sits below the back cover.
• Third cover (IBC). The value cover. Back-of-book readers (recipe, puzzle and horoscope traffic) pass it constantly; it usually carries the smallest premium of the three.

Buying posture

Covers sell out months before ROP pages; on strong books the fourth cover can be committed a year ahead. That scarcity cuts both ways. Premiums are the last thing an AE discounts, because scarcity is the product^[2]. But a cover that is still open close to the space deadline is a cover about to go to waste, and Step 04 remnant logic applies in full. Ask the calendar question first: "which covers are open in the next six issues?" The answer tells you whether you are negotiating against scarcity or against inventory anxiety.

Base size economics: full page. Timing the ask: Step 05, deadlines. Haggling order of operations: Step 03.