Subscriber portal software for magazine publishers

What subscriber portal software does

Subscriber portal software is the part of a subscription system that readers use themselves. Instead of calling or emailing your service team, a reader opens a web page to start a subscription, renew, change an address or choose which emails they get. For a magazine publisher, a portal only helps if every change lands in the records your team uses for each issue's mailing list and invoicing. A portal that keeps its own copy of the subscriber creates more support work, not less.

A complete subscriber portal usually covers four jobs:

• Buying. Subscribe, renew or give a subscription, and pay.
• Identity. Let readers show who they are without a call to your office.
• Changes. Address, contact details, newsletter choices and consent.
• Account. Invoices, the saved payment card, cancellation and the status of each request.

RunMags covers the first three. The account jobs are on the roadmap, as set out below.

What your subscribers can do in RunMags

1. Subscribe on your branded page. In Subscription sales > Portals you set up a subscription page for each campaign: the subscription products it offers, your logo, top image and colours, the currency, and the dates the campaign runs. You link to the page from your website, newsletters or social posts.
2. Pay by card through your own Stripe account. Readers pay by card at checkout. Once you connect your Stripe account to RunMags, the payments go to that account.
3. Give a subscription. When you turn on gift options for a page, a reader can buy a subscription for someone else. RunMags keeps the payer and the recipient as separate subscribers.
4. Renew from a link or an emailed code. A renewal link opens the page with the subscription to renew already selected. A reader who arrives without the link can ask for a code by email and use it to find their subscription.
5. Get an order confirmation. When the order is complete, RunMags records it on the subscriber and the subscription in your account and emails the reader a confirmation.
6. Update details and email preferences. A personal link in your emails opens the reader's preferences page. There they can correct their name, email, phone and postal address, switch individual newsletters on or off, and withdraw consent to all mailings. When a reader withdraws consent, RunMags unsubscribes them from all newsletters and records each newsletter opt-out with its date and time.

Connected to circulation and billing

Orders from the portal are not a separate list for someone to import. A subscription bought on your page is a subscription in RunMags, on the same subscriber record your service team opens when a reader calls, so it is included when your team builds the distribution list for the issues it covers. An address a reader corrects on the preferences page is the address on that record.

See how subscription management in RunMags handles products, renewal reminders and the renewal batch, and how circulation management builds the mailing list for each issue.

On the roadmap

Some portal jobs are not in RunMags yet. Until they are, your service team handles them in the subscriber record:

• Invoices in the portal (roadmap). Readers cannot yet view or download their invoices themselves.
• Card updates (roadmap). Readers cannot yet change their saved payment card themselves.
• Cancellation requests (roadmap). Readers ask your team to cancel; there is no cancel button in the portal yet.
• Request status and effective dates (roadmap). The portal does not yet show when a change takes effect relative to the next issue.
• Promo codes (roadmap). Discount codes cannot yet be entered at checkout.
• Scheduled renewals and payment retries (roadmap). Renewals are charged when your team runs the renewal batch, and failed card payments are not retried automatically.

The portal also does not control access to digital content on your website.

Subscriber portal software checklist

Before you choose subscriber portal software, test these questions with your own subscribers and offers:

• Where does a change land? Check that an address change or a new order updates the record your mailing list and invoices come from, not a copy that has to be synced.
• How do readers identify themselves? A password, an emailed link or a one-time code each create different support questions, for example when a reader changes their email address.
• Which jobs are self-service? List what readers can do alone and what still needs your team: invoices, card updates, cancellations and gift subscriptions.
• Can each offer have its own page? Campaigns often need their own products, branding and end date.
• Whose payment account is it? Check which account receives the money and what happens when a card payment fails.
• Is consent recorded? When a reader opts out, the change should be logged and applied to every newsletter.

Comparing RunMags with Pelcro and other subscription platforms

Subscription platforms built around reader revenue, such as Pelcro, document a full self-service account, including card updates and invoice downloads. RunMags is built for publishers who sell advertising as well as subscriptions, with both on the same customer record in one CRM for magazines. Read our Pelcro alternative guide for a side-by-side view, including where Pelcro documents more than RunMags does today.