Full page magazine ad cost
The full page is print's anchor unit: every other size is priced as a fraction of it, and every rate card leads with it. On the one retrievable national card, a full page 4-color is $44,331 gross, a $31.67 CPM against its published 1,400,000 rate base.[1]
| Cell | Rate | CPM vs published circ | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| National (Reader's Digest 2026) | $44,331 | $31.67 | Published[1] |
| National (Reader's Digest 2024, for trend) | $76,301 | $31.79 | Published, superseded[2] |
| Regional / city full page | Quote-only | Kit required | No public card[3] |
| Local / community full page | Quote-only | Ask for print run | No public card |
| Trade / B2B full page | Quote-only | Use BPA count | No public card |
Open rate vs earned rate on a full page
The card price is the open rate: one insertion, no history, no commitment. The earned rate is what you pay after frequency and negotiation. Cards ladder down as insertion counts rise, and first-time advertiser rates, added-value pages and remnant offers push the effective price further below the card. The spread between open and earned is where a buyer makes their money; Step 02 explains the ladder and Step 03 gets you down it. What we will not print: a made-up "typical discount percentage." No citable source survives contact with the ledger, so the guidance stays qualitative.
When the full page earns its premium
Buy full pages for creative that needs the canvas: brand launches, image work, offers with real art direction. Buy them for position leverage too; covers and front-of-book placements only come in full-page form (cover folio). If the ad is a coupon with a phone number, the half page usually buys the same response for less money.
Sources on file
- [1]Reader's Digest 2026 Media Kit, Trusted Media Brands. 2026 rate card, published October 2025. Retrieved 2026-07-31. Evidences: Reader's Digest full-page and half-page 4-color gross rates, 1,400,000 rate base, RD Large Print rates and 175,000 circulation.
- [2]Reader's Digest 2024 Media Kit, Trusted Media Brands (on file). 2024 rate card. Retrieved 2026-07-31. Evidences: 2024 full-page 4-color gross rate of $76,301 and 2,400,000 rate base, used for the 2024 to 2026 trend comparison.
- [3]Texas Monthly advertise page. Current site; kit gated behind a sales contact, retrieval attempt 2026-07-31 returned 403. Retrieved 2026-07-31. Evidences: Kit request route only; no archived rate card on file, so Texas Monthly figures are quote-only on this site.