The Sabre Announces New Subscription Pricing

TheSabre.com announces new pricing adjustments to our annual and monthly subscriptions, as well as new subscription opportunities. These changes – the first since August of 2018 – are effective immediately.

  • Our monthly subscription will increase from $8.49 to $10 per month.
  • Our annual subscription will increase from $84.49 to $100 per year.
  • New monthly subscribers receive the first month free.
  • Student subscriptions are now FREE.

Before getting to the “why” behind the rate increase, here are some things you need to know.

ALL OF OUR SUBSCRIPTIONS AUTO-RENEW, SO PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY. We include instructions on how to cancel auto-renewal, as well as instructions to NOT renew early.

  • Your subscription – monthly or annual – will renew automatically at the new rate. You don’t need to do anything to stay on board as a subscriber.
  • Please DO NOT renew early; this will result in double-charges in our system. Simply let your subscription reach its expiration date, and it will renew automatically at the new rate.
  • If you wish to cancel, you must turn off recurring billing. To do so, make sure you’re logged into the site, click here, and look for the “View Payment History/Cancel Subscription” link. (If you don’t see the link, it’s because your subscription was previously canceled.) Click it, and your subscription will not automatically renew upon expiration. You’ll still be a subscriber for the duration of your subscription, but it will not automatically renew when it expires.

Why The Increase?

When the worldwide pandemic hit, third-party advertising, which is a primary source of our revenue, plummeted. Advertising revenue remains substantially below pre-pandemic levels and we have exhausted other resources for now, leaving us no alternative but to raise subscription prices for the first time since August of 2018.

The additional revenue will hopefully help us reach a solid foundation. Additionally, we do have some plans in the works that the subscription price increase will help. These include:

  • Improved Message Boards: Our message boards are the heart of our Sabre community, and we are eyeing improved operations that will be a benefit to both the user and business.

    Our programming team has been hard at work in 2021 rewriting the underlying programming code for our message boards.The current message boards are written in an old programming language called PERL. PERL has been what we’ve used on the site for two decades and it’s become increasingly difficult for us to perform maintenance and add features to the boards.

    It’s been important to us to make sure that you are still able to get the same experience using the site on TheSabre. The format of the boards will stay the same. The underlying code is what we’ve been rewriting.

    The code framework is what’s known as a Progressive Web App. The most famous Progressive Web Apps are: Facebook, Twitter, and gmail.

    This will allow us to make the application run a lot faster on mobile, and keep our layout and design the same as it is right now

  • New and exciting ideas for The Sabre community and in terms of content. This includes adding internships for students.

New Subscriber Options

We are hopeful our two new subscriber options will help us expand our base. We are pleased to offer UVA students a free subscription and to offer new monthly subscribers a free first month – this will allow all people to try the subscription product. If you are a current subscriber, please pass this information along to friends and family!

If you are unable to stay on board as a subscriber at the new price, we thank you for your support as a subscriber to TheSabre.com and hope to have you back on board someday.

If you have any questions for us, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll attempt to answer your email as soon as possible, but it may take a while, as we expect a lot of emails following this announcement.

Thank you for your support of TheSabre.com!

4 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. Increases are understandable, but… a LOT of what I pay for, seems to show up on free board. Your sister over on TSL seems to hold a lot more, “closer to the vest”. Seems childish to say this, but I question how much “additional” info I really get. Yes, there is member feedback/comments exclusive to the paid page, but it seems like most of the staff info is public. Am I way off base?

  2. I am happy to support the Sabre and the
    Hoos whenever I can. Still seems like a bargain to me. The monthly cost is about the same as a coffee from your favorite barista, or less than a nice lunch.
    Carry on and thank you

    1. Wow. Coffee went up that much. I don’t think I ever paid $10 for my starbucks. s/n. Good on them for getting more money though. This is capitalism 101. I quit my subscription when it went up the last time and can’t say I miss it much now. I just ignore the edge content. It was better when it was Virginiabasketball.com and virginiafootball.com back in the day

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