Optimal Subscriptions

According to Advertising Age, Paste magazine is running a subscription promotion in which subscribers can set their own price.

While traveling recently, I picked up an issue of Paste, primarily to gauge its range of music coverage -- and to take advantage of the sampler CD included in the issue. This might be the best part of this subscription promo. Every issue of Paste comes with a sampler CD so you can listen to select musicians and bands featured in a given issue.

That means that whatever price you pay, you get 12 issues of Paste, as well as 12 CDs. That's attractive. So I just signed up. They've set the floor at $1, and people who pay full price will supposedly be named in an upcoming issue. I split the middle and ponied up $10, which is more than fair. I was tempted to pay full price -- I did, after all, have a subscription card filled out and ready to mail that I ended up not sending -- but I didn't want to inflate the expectations of experiments like this.

A good number of people will pay full price -- $19.95 for 12 issues and 12 CDs. And a good number may go for the $1 steal. I'd be curious to see what the bell curve ends up looking like. What's the average price going to be?

Best of luck, Paste. It's a neat thing to try.