The Economist Reviews 

Do not subscribe to the Economist.

Appalling experience. Cancelled subscription and they took payment renewal. They used to be a reputable company now just scammers. Look at their Trustpilot rating an absolute disgrace. When I tried to resolve with them they did not care, now have raised chargeback complaints with PayPal and my bank, they won't be able to ignore those.

I’ve had a very disappointing experience with The Economist’s subscription process. I purchased a digital subscription through a page that clearly advertised that it included access to The New York Times at no extra cost. The price was identical to the offer I clicked, so there was no reason to think I was being redirected to a different product.

After paying, I found out the NYT access wasn’t included at all. I also never received the welcome email their confirmation promised, which suggests something went wrong on their side.

I contacted customer service several times, but each time I received the same template response, with no acknowledgement of the issue and no explanation of what went wrong. Instead, they kept offering unrelated alternative products. At no point did anyone address the misleading offer.

I genuinely like The Economist’s journalism, but this experience with their subscription service has been poor. For a publication known for its integrity, I expected better transparency and support.
I have cancelled and will raise the issue with the ASA.

As expected, despite The Economist’s response and claim of wanting to resolve this, I haven’t heard anything from them anymore. Wouldn’t recommend.

At 41 for the first time I feel compelled to call out a business for awful practice, and find it a surprise that this business is an esteemed publication I have revered for many years. I never thought I would be using the word scam to describe my experience as a customer of the Economist but it seems like I and clearly many others are doing so.

Other than one email dated 3 Apr 2025, 17:07 that after 2 paragraphs of waffle stated "On November 21st 2025, your subscription will automatically renew" I had no additional notifications that this business would take money from my account. The way you have gone about your business is incredibly sneaky, underhand and poor practice - something I have never experienced as a customer before from any other subscription business I have dealt with.

From what I have briefly read EU laws require clear communication about renewals, the Economist do not appear to be complying to this, which would make their practices, in the eyes of a court, illegal.

"The company is under an obligation to remind you of this in writing at least one month before the contract is to end. If there is no such clause in the contract, or if the company fails to remind you in time, you have the right to terminate the contract immediately."

Economist has changed in two ways which prompted me to cancel subscription after lifespan (with some breaks). It has lost learning hinseide from way too many incorrect (though often hedged) analysis of events. Hence I was sitting on the fence of renewal question when another calamity hit: an incompetent service company took over the subscription processing. I quit as quick as I could. After, I read report by many others who did not make this decision fast enough. The Economist needs new management as it would appear.

Shameless Paid pathetic journalism. Disgusting 🤢

After nearly 50 years of readership (starting at age 10, due to my British dad, who venerated the publication), I'd say The Economist has fully run its course. It's "news" isn't mostly news, as such. Rather, its copy (to call them articles would be unnecessarily generous) is laden with opinion and silly prescriptions and, most of all, cowardice. Like most or all legacy media, The Economist lives in thrall to and in fear of Trump--the most "illiberal" (in Economist-speak) force to occupy the US presidency in memory. All of the bothsidesism and unnecessarily fawning coverage (e.g., "Trump is right when ... " is too much to bear. A broken clock is right, etc.) I'm sad that I cannot cancel the remainder of my subscription and receive a refund. In any event, this is the very last time I'll pay the rather hefty subscription price for the drivel The Economist is currently generating. And I don't think there's a fix, short of a complete reinvention of their model. But then, they would no longer appeal to the old people (like me) who formerly comprised their subscription base. Stick a fork in it.

1 week after I realise that I was on automatic re-subscription, I asked to be refunded, but they refused due to new "policy"

It will take you half an hour to cancel the free trail, in case you hang in there chat and manage. Dark patterns. I will never do this again.

Unfortunately, the paper either arrives late on a Saturday or by Tuesday the following. What use is receiving a weekend paper the following week? dont bother.

It's such a shame how the subscription works. Such good content and podcasts but after this ordeal I will and have gone elsewhere. It should be much better. AVOID.

The Economist is one of the best magazines out there for its content on politics, business, lifestyle and technology. However as others have said, their cancellation process almost borders on scam because there is no option to cancel online and I had to end up chatting to an agent who pursued me to continue the subscription until I had to insist on cancellation.

Amazing magazine. Insightful articles and very well-researched. The only drawback is that is extremely, extremely expensive.

The central tenet of any business transaction is that you pay a business to provide a service and get refunded if the business is unable to provide the service. I paid for Print subscription since I like reading print magazines. Economist have been unable to deliver print copies. I reached out to their support multiple times and felt like I was in a Groundhog day movie!

Every single time they would say that they have escalated the matter to their delivery team and come next week I would not get the print copy. Since I did not get the print copies, I canceled the subscription. The shocking thing was The Economist refused to offer a refund since my cancellation was outside their initial 14 day period. I found this incredibly shady, since the fault was 100% theirs. They have no idea how to deliver physical magazines. I have no problems getting magazines and letters delivered to my address from other companies.

What The Economist is doing is downright fraudulent. It's not legal for a business to take money for a service and not provide the service. They need to either fix their physical delivery system or provide an option to cancel/offer refunds if they are unable to deliver print magazines.

The articles are good. But the service and delivery are just awful! I have not received print copies on-time for 3 months! I know, I'm old school - I like reading print versions. After contacting them via chat, they just sent a few OLD copies (like, who wants to read month-old news) for compensation.

I've tried getting them to correct this 3 times via chat with no luck - just really poor service and they didn't seem to care that I didn't want to pay for something they weren't sending me.

Beware paying these guys in advance. It's an expensive magazine - one would expect it to have much better service.

So disappointed.

What a scam! After listening to the first 3 free episodes of an Economist Podcast, we had to sign up for a subscription in order to get the remaining episodes. Trying to cancel the subscription after was a nightmare and took over an hour to do which included a phone call.
We now realized that, despite canceling, they’ve been charging us $9/month totalling $36! Ironically, the podcast was about Scam Inc.

I canceled the main subscription and got some runaround about keeping Espresso so that I could then cancel it. I know...it doesn't make any sense. After 45 minutes on the phone, I thought I finally resolved everything. Today, I had to call back yet again because I'm somehow being charged for Espresso, which I DID NOT WANT and TRIED TO CANCEL. This company reoccurs like a bad rash.

Paying upfront for The Economist has been a complete disaster. Most weeks my issue simply doesn’t arrive — I then have to chase them for a reprint that shows up two weeks late, if at all.

The low point? Eight straight weeks with NOTHING. No originals, no reprints. For this, their “solution” was a pitiful €20 compensation — insulting given the hundreds I’ve paid.

This isn’t an occasional glitch; it’s a systemic failure. Every week feels like a battle just to get what I paid for. The Economist’s brand suggests quality and reliability — the reality is incompetence and indifference.

I feel cheated, and I wouldn’t recommend this subscription to anyone unless you enjoy paying for a service you may never receive.

Useless Chat option as more interested in 'verifying subscription record' than answering my comment about yet another 10% cover price increase. My goodness they have my email address so what more is necessary? This type of response is becoming far too common in UK where companies are not interested in offering any justification for price. Probably want to push electronic and cease printing. Good luck with that.

I canceled my subscription for the economist espresso back in June but I'm still being charged. I e mailed the complaints e mail that you listed on here in response to other complaints on the 31st of July and have not received a response.

In response to your message below I already e mailed you on the complaints e-mail on the 31st of July but you have not responded!! I have taken the matter up with my credit card company.

The Economist has become too focused on promoting its opinions and too light on presenting the facts. When facts are presented, they are often distorted by opinion.

A glaring example of this is their recent leader "The climate needs a politics of the possible". In this leader they state:

"Seeing an ever-more-powerful China emitting more than Europe and America combined makes resentful Western voters seethe."

This is just stupid. Of course China emits more pollution because it has a bigger population. What is significant is how much pollution each person emits. So the reality is the opposite of what the author of the leader stated. The US emits 17.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person, whereas China emits 9.4 metric tons. Add to that the fact that a lot of China's emissions and significant emissions from container shipping are caused by American demand for manufactured goods, and the conclusion is that the US is twice as polluting as China, the exact opposite of what the article said. This is very sloppy reporting.