Media Kit · Ice Cream Fort Collins
Advertise in
The Scoop
Fort Collins' independent local magazine.
A free digital weekly and a printed quarterly for Fort Collins proper. We earn advertiser trust by being genuinely useful and genuinely independent.
- Free digital weekly
- The website plus email — new coverage every week: reviews, guides, the business directory, and the newsletter. Free to read, always.
- Printed quarterly
- Four issues a year, distributed free on racks around Fort Collins by our own street team. Working print title: The Scoop.
- Fort Collins proper
- A Choice-City audience — not a regional spread. Local readers making local decisions about where to eat, shop, and take the family.
The audience
Honest reach, backed by our own logs.
Print run
2,500 copies first run, scaling to 5,000
A launch run that grows as demand proves out — the rate card stays the same the whole time.
Distribution
Free racks + logged street-team drops
Free racks around Fort Collins plus a street-team drop cycle. Every drop and every return is counted and logged in our routes console — our circulation claims are backed by drop-and-return logs, never a rounded-up guess.
Digital surfaces
Weekly site, email, Instagram
The website (icecreamfortcollins.com), the weekly email newsletter, and an Instagram presence.
Estimated reach
7,500+ readers per issue (estimate)
Industry pass-along research (CRMA) suggests roughly 3–4.3 readers per printed copy. On a 2,500-copy run that points to an estimated 7,500+ readers per issue.
This is an industry-standard estimate, clearly labeled as an estimate — not a measured or audited figure. We do not claim readership, engagement, or circulation numbers we cannot back with our own logs.
Rate card
Simple rates, published openly.
| Placement | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Full page | $650per issue | Bundled Featured-tier listing on the website included. |
| Half page | $395per issue | Bundled Featured-tier website listing included. |
| Quarter page | $225per issue | Bundled Featured-tier website listing included. |
| Back cover | $1,100per issue | Premium outside-back position. |
| Ice-cream trail centerfold — “presented by” | $1,500per issue | Present the signature centerfold spread. |
| Whole-issue sponsor | $2,500per issue | Single-sponsor presence across the issue. |
Founding offer
Founding Advertiser
$2,000A full page in all four issues this year — about $500 a page — with your price locked while our print run doubles. Your website Featured-tier placement is included free. This is ground-floor pricing that ends once circulation receipts exist.
First print issue
This year's Halloween issue runs digital only, with a free half-page founding ad for the first 50 businesses who claim by Oct 20 (see the Halloween issue). These packages lock your founding rate into our first print issue instead, which goes to press once $9,000 is signed by Oct 15. Orders are due on signing, and refunded in full if that issue does not print.
Halloween Founding — half page
$1,200four issues
For businesses on The Fort List Halloween hunt: a half page in our first print issue and the next three, price locked (about $300 a page). The full-page Founding Advertiser rate ($2,000) is open to them too. The Halloween 2026 issue itself is digital only; its free half pages go to the first 50 businesses that claim by Oct 20.
Halloween Presenting Partner — hunt-map centerfold
$3,000Halloween issue
One available. Your name on the centerfold spread and the issue's "presented by" credit, a full-page ad inside, website and newsletter placement. A magazine sponsorship: it buys placement, never coverage, and it is not a sponsorship of the hunt event.
Halloween Presenting Partner — back cover
$2,000Halloween issue
One available. The outside back cover, named as a partner in the issue's "presented by" credit, website and newsletter placement. A magazine sponsorship: it buys placement, never coverage, and it is not a sponsorship of the hunt event.
Nonprofits
25% off any placement above.
Print advertiser bonus
Every print advertiser gets the website's Featured tier bundled at no extra charge.
Regional comparison
For contrast, regional monthly glossies run far higher — a comparable full page is a fraction of the ~$2,399/month regional monthly-glossy rate.
Why it means something
Rankings and reviews are never for sale.
Advertisers buy pages — never opinions. Our rankings, reviews, hot-list spots, and Best-of votes are not for sale for money, a favor, or a big advertiser. Paid content is always clearly labeled. We never promise editorial coverage as part of an ad deal. That independence is exactly why being in these pages means something — and why our audience trusts them.
The details
Specs, deadlines, and terms.
- Trim size
- 8.5″ × 11″, saddle-stitched
- Deadlines
- Ads close six weeks before press (T-6, space close); final approved artwork four weeks before press (T-4).
- Artwork & design
- No artwork? We design your ad and you approve a proof — design is included at no extra charge.
- Terms
- Signed insertion order before an ad runs. Payment net-20; first-print-issue orders are due on signing and refunded in full if that issue does not print. The Halloween 2026 issue itself runs digital only, with a free half-page founding ad for the first 50 businesses, claimed by the end of Oct 20 — no signing, no card.
- Press gate
- We only go to press once $9,000 of ads is signed for our first print issue, by Oct 15. We never print on hope — which means every ad that runs, runs in an issue readers actually hold.
Get in touch
Let's put your business in the next issue.
Email the magazine and we'll walk you through placement, timing, and the founding offer.
advertise@icecreamfortcollins.comicecreamfortcollins.com · Edited & published in Fort Collins, CO
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