An important announcement before Year 7 of The Observer begins

We're slightly raising our subscription prices for the first time ever on August 1. Here's why we're doing it and what you need to know.

Jul 20, 2026

If you’re reading this when it hits your inbox on the morning of Monday, July 20, The Auburn Observer will be en route to SEC Media Days in Tampa.

I have always viewed Media Days as the unofficial start to football season. And, because we’ve now hit that point on the calendar, that means The Observer is about to start its seventh year in business.

Those words are pretty incredible for me to type. Seven years. When this started all the way back in 2020, it was an experiment to get through a pandemic season after I had been laid off from a job covering Auburn for the second time in three years.

Since pretty much Day 1 of Year 1, this has been the only job I have wanted to do. I absolutely love running an independent outlet covering Auburn football and Auburn men’s basketball — now with some Auburn baseball! (thanks, Henry) — the way I’ve always wanted to do it.

And, to be honest, it’s been a surprisingly smooth ride. I can count the number of times I’ve had any serious issues with Substack or our payment platform in these six years on my two hands, with fingers to spare. Much more importantly, the level of support we get from our subscribers is beyond anything I would have ever imagined.

The Observer launched on August 1, 2020. Because of its place on the Auburn sports calendar, the next month and change is when the majority of subscriptions renew.

That’s why I’m giving everyone a fair amount of a heads up: Starting August 1, Observer subscription prices will increase to $7/month or $70/year.

(whispers) This means, if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, joining between now and the end of July at $60 for your first year — before the price goes up — is by far the best deal.

This is a decision that I have personally wrestled with for a long time now. (Multiple years, in fact.) People work hard for their money, and those of you who decide to spend some of it on a niche outlet that covers Auburn sports is something I don’t take lightly at all.

From the very beginning, I’ve wanted to be honest and transparent about what we’re doing here at The Observer. Again, you can spend that hard-earned cash on anything, and there’s nothing more frustrating than getting an unexplained hike on a subscription price.

So I would like to talk through the reasons why we have decided to make this change, starting August 1:

This bump in price has been a long time coming, honestly. We’ve been $6/month or $60/year at the most since we launched. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, $6 in August 2020 money is worth about $7.71 in July 2026 money. (And $60 back then is worth about $77.09. Math.) We haven’t changed our prices in our first six years, but it’s past time to make this adjustment to help us continue covering these teams all over the country. Also, I was a single guy living in a cheap one-bedroom apartment when this launched. I’m now married with a mortgage. Mary Kate, at the very least, will thank you for your service.

We’re more than just a two-man operation now. Back when we launched, it was just Painter and me. For a while, once Painter moved on to bigger and better things, it was just Dan and me. But we have regular contributors like Henry, Lee and AUNerd now, and we’re planning to have a staff photographer this upcoming school year for the first time ever. This price increase will give us more flexibility to get more people involved at The Observer and give you guys more bang for your buck over time.

We think this price is still a pretty good deal. When we launched The Observer, we promised you three newsletters and two podcasts per week. I ran the numbers this weekend, and we’re actually averaging 366 posts per year — more than one per day. Considering there are a lot of non-Auburn newsletter and podcast sites out there that don’t have nearly the sheer volume as we have for a price of much more than $7/month, we think we’re still offering a very competitive price on what we deliver.

Since we made it six years, we can move past the 6-themed pricing. OK, this isn’t a real reason. But there is some nice synergy to the 7 in Year 7. You know I like a bit.

For those of you who are annual subscribers to The Observer, the new price of $70/year won’t kick in until your subscription renews — since you already have paid.

For those of you who are monthly subscribers to The Observer, the new price of $7/month will kick in on your renewal date in August. Again, if you would like to switch to an annual subscription to save some money, this is a great time.

For those of you who are still among the Observers Unlimited tier that greatly helped us get the whole thing off the ground back in the day, you’re all still incredible, generous and good-looking.

And for those of you who might not be willing to pay the extra buck or so per month to continue your subscription, no hard feelings there. We’ll always appreciate your time supporting us, and the door is always open for a return.

If you ever have any questions about your subscription, feel free to email me at the1andonlyJF@gmail.com or reply to any Observer email you’ve gotten. I am certain there might be some hiccups or bugs with this price increase in August. Reach out to me, and I’ll help work through those as best as I can.

Again, this is a decision that I’ve debated internally for a long time now, but it’s long overdue. We’ve been beyond blessed to grow and are around twice the subscriber base we were at after our initial surge of launch growth back in Year 1. We want to continue to keep growing and evolving, and this change will make that possible.

We’ll have coverage from SEC Media Days in Tampa throughout the week here at The Observer. We’ve already been around for summer work for Auburn basketball, and it will be time for fall camp for Auburn football before you know it.

And it’s going to be our seventh year of doing this with y’all. I’ve now officially been doing The Observer longer than any other job covering Auburn combined. This is by far the most excited I’ve ever been to start a school year of coverage.

Thank you all so much for your support and helping us #EstablishIt. Let’s. Go.

Justin Ferguson
The Auburn Observer