The amount of money newspapers and magazines charge to advertisers is closely tied to their reader base. That’s why print media will often give discounts to people willing to subscribe for longer periods of time. But not the Denver Post, which wants you to pay significantly more per week if you go with the lengthier subscription.

Consumerist reader Daniel scanned this renewal card he received from the paper.

It offers 8 weeks of the Denver Post for $40.95. For a little more than $5/week, that might be appealing.

But for four times that amount — $163.80 — you can get 13 weeks of the same paper. That’s $12.60 a week, which we’re pretty sure is not a good deal for anyone.

This is likely a misprint, but it’s one thing to have a misprint on an ad or marketing materials, and a completely different thing for that misprint to be on the official renewal invoice the paper sends out to existing customers.

Much like this Cold Stone Creamery charging a 25% sales tax, we’re curious to know how widespread the Post’s apparent goof is, and how many people signed up for the 13-week subscription without doing the math.

UPDATE: The Denver Post confirms to Consumerist that it is indeed a printing error —

The renewal offer should have read $40.95 for 13 weeks, and $163.80 for 52 weeks. Based on what we see here, this is an isolated problem effecting only a handful of accounts. A unique scenario which included a specific past special offer, along with what appears to have been a previous monthly pay option triggered the statement with the misprint. Our accounting system apparently was not able to handle the technical specifications of that combination, so we are instructing the vendor who produces our statements to manually inspect those specific offers before they are sent out.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.