Don’t pay full price when you can get free or discounted magazine copies and subscriptions.
For about 20 years I subscribed to the film magazine Empire, but I’ve not paid at all in the last decade – thanks to different deals and hacks to get it, and other titles, for free. And if they don’t work, there are ways to pay less too.
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Free magazines tricks
Free digital magazines and newspapers from your library
Libraries don’t just lend books and DVDs – you can also borrow digitally. As well as (non-Kindle) e-books, magazines and newspapers are available. The service will vary depending on your library, but for me I’ve got access to the Press Reader app.
You just need to join your local library, and many will let you do this from their website – even if you don’t have proof of residency. Others will require you to visit the library itself.
Once signed up you can access different magazines that can be downloaded to your tablet, phone or viewed on a computer. It doesn’t take much getting used to reading them on a tablet; an extra bonus is you can zoom in on any bits that are a little too small to read.
I’n the past I’ve regularly download Empire, Radio Times and Wallpaper for free, and my wife has chosen Vogue, Good Housekeeping and Newsweek – and there are dozens and dozens of other options.
Free magazine subscription via a Club Lloyds bank account
Every year with this bank account you have the choice of a free annual magazine subscription, six free cinema tickets or a year of Disney+ with Ads.
Though you’re limited to just one personal account, you can get another as a joint account. That means a couple could have three Club Lloyds accounts, and three freebies. So even if you prefer Disney+ as your first choice, you could easily add a magazine via one of your other accounts.
You do need to pay in £2,000 a month into the current account to avoid a £5 monthly fee, but you don’t have to keep the money in the account, nor does it need to be in one go. We’ve more details in our Club Lloyds review.
There’s also sometimes a switching bonus for Lloyds if you close an account at another bank and move everything over so it’s worth keeping an eye out for that.
Free magazines with the Club Lloyds bank account
The magazines available include (updated 29/7/25):
- Best
- Bike
- Bird Watching
- Car
- Classic Cars
- Cosmopolitan
- Country Living
- Country Walking
- ELLE Decoration
- ELLE
- Empire
- Esquire
- Garden Answers
- Good Housekeeping
- Harper’s Bazaar
- House Beautiful
- Improve Your Coarse Fishing
- Inside Soap
- Landscape
- Men’s Health
- Modern Games
- Mojo
- Practical Classics
- Prima
- Red
- Runner’s World
- Spirit & Destiny
- Steam Railway
- Today’s Golfer
- Trail
- Women’s Health
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Free online magazines with Amazon Prime
A less well-known feature that Amazon introduced for Prime members called Prime Reading. Here you get free access to a number of books and magazines.
The selection rotates each month so you won’t see the same titles featured every month, but there’s a decent mix to choose from. At the time of writing you can pick up 59 different magazines including Top Gear, Elle and Today’s Golfer.
You don’t need a Kindle to read them, in fact they work better if you use the Kindle app on your tablet.
Prime costs £8.99 a month or £95 a year, though you can get a free 30-day trial each year.
Cheap magazine subscription tricks
Try a multi-magazine digital subscription
If you don’t have the RGB service at your library, you can try a couple of different Netlflix style services where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited access.
The two main ones are Readly and Magzter, and both have free or cheap trials to give them a go. Right now, Readly offers a two-month free trial, while it’s 7-days free at Magzter. Both have thousands of titles, many of them designed specifically for tablets making them a far more interactive read.
Once the trials end it’s a bit pricey at £12.99 and £14.99 a month respectively. However, it’s not bad value if you’d normally buy two or three magazines a month – and even better if you can split the subscription with friends or family. There are often more ways to save, so hunt for deals.
Buy a cut-price subscription online
If print is more your thing, please don’t pay full price for a subscription. You’ll almost always be able to find a cheaper deal online.
If you have Tesco Clubcard vouchers, you can exchange 50p in points for £1 to spend on a variety of titles.
Sites such as Great Magazines and iSubscribe offer money off full price, though you’re unlikely to get more than 40% off. Occasionally you can also get a free voucher (eg Amazon or Ticketmaster) with a reduced subscription.
Check cashback sites too, as they may have bonuses for orders. And if you’re not already a TopCashback or Quidco member, make sure you sign up via our links for up to £20 extra back on top.
Check for deals
From time to time there are other special offers to help you save, and we’ll share significant ones in our magazines and newspaper deals page. Recent examples have included a huge stack of deals on Which? and £1 a month deals for The Athletic.
Haggle for trials and discounts
Finally, if you’re already paying for a magazine, don’t just auto-renew. As with many other bills, call up to cancel to see what they’ll offer. Turn down their initial deal, and see if they can get prices down even more.
And if you don’t have a current subscription, you can still haggle. In the past I was constantly called by the Empire sales team as a former subscriber. At one point I got 12 issues for less than £10!
Or you can contact the magazine publisher direct. Go to their website to find the number and see what you can get.
Just make sure you cancel before the full Direct Debit starts.
