Login Help

Please click the link Forgotten your password on the login screen and you will be taken through the steps to reset your password.

Please click here to go to the signup page and create your account.

Please click here to go to the contact us page and send us an email. We will get back to you as soon as possible so you can start swapping.

Joining ContraSwap

To join just complete the simple registration process, which will only take five minutes. All you need to do is list your magazine details; we will then calculate the number of ContraPoints you will earn when someone advertises in your magazine.

Simple - just complete the sign up form, and we’ll email you an activation link. Verify your email by clicking the link and you’re ready to go. Our verification check makes sure all users are genuinely involved in running the magazine. We aim to complete this check and get you live on the system within one business day.

To sign up, you must be involved in the running of a magazine. Specifically, you must have the authority within your company to agree to run an advertisement in your magazine, and the authority to agree to place advertisements in other magazines.

Any size of magazine can join ContraSwap, we have no minimum or maximum circulation requirement.

We accept a wide range of consumer and business publications to ContraSwap. We do not currently accept registrations from magazines which are pornographic in nature, or which depict or endorse activities which are illegal under British law.

At the moment ContraSwap is only open to publishers. However, we recognise that there is great potential to expand the idea beyond only magazines. Please get in touch with us, via our contact us page, and let us know the type of company that you run, and how you think you could benefit from using ContraSwap. We will then look to expand our site to further strengthen the ContraSwap community.

Please see our terms and conditions in full – while we have included a brief summary below this is in no way comprehensive. Read our full Terms and Conditions here

1. You are not making any financial commitment at this stage. ContraSwap is currently free of charge.

2. If you agree to place an advertisement in your magazine using ContraSwap this becomes a legally binding obligation, as it would if you had sold the advertisement.

3. Advertisements in your magazine that have been received via ContraSwap must feature the ContraSwap logo in a small typeface in the fold edge of the page, in the same way that media agencies are acknowledged. This is so that we can track adverts, this is called the ContraSwap Signature. Full details are here.

4. You must send us one copy of each magazine containing an advert placed via ContraSwap. This is used to verify that advertisements are being correctly placed.

You can only advertise your magazine, or directly relevant publications and services, using ContraSwap. For example, you could advertise your new magazine website, or a forthcoming conference that your magazine is organising. You may not advertise other products, for example a photography magazine may not advertise a camera.

Yes, of course. You must approve each request to advertise in your magazine, and then you must approve each piece of artwork. You may refuse any advertisement without giving a reason for the refusal. You are never forced to accept any advertisement at any time. However, once you have agreed to place a ContraSwapped advertisement you are then contractually obliged to publish it, just as you would be with a paid-for advertisement.

Your circulation does not have to be audited for you to join ContraSwap. In time, we will add additional incentives for magazines whose circulation is audited. You are free to change your circulation figure on ContraSwap as your magazine grows.

About your deals

Yes. Add available pages as late as you like before your advertising deadline. You can add up to a maximum of 5 ContraSwapped pages per issue. You might find it harder to find someone for these pages unless you leave them adequate time to see your offer and prepare the artwork.

This is very simple. To ensure everyone uses the system fairly, both sending and receiving ads for publication, we included the Send/Receive difference. The send/receive difference means you can only send 5 more ads than you have received. So, for example, if you have sent 5 ads for publication in other magazines, but have not yet received and accepted any ads into your own magazine, you will have to receive an ad yourself before you can place any more ads in other publications.

Yes, you can still arrange contra details in the traditional manner whilst signed up to ContraSwap. If your existing contra deal partners also sign up to ContraSwap you can manage all your deals quickly, easily, and in one place. Why not ask them to visit www.contraswap.com and find out for themselves about what we offer. You can click here to send them an email inviting them to ContraSwap.

There are two small things you must do when printing an advertisement received via ContraSwap.

1. Ensure a small mention of ContraSwap is made in the same way adverts acknowledge a creative agency: by placing a small, unobtrusive mention of the word ContraSwap in the fold edge of the advertisement. See example.

2. Send a copy of the magazine containing the advert to the ContraSwap office address so that we can verify the advert was included. either send us a one-off copy, or add us to your list of subscribers if you prefer. Our address is ContraSwap Ltd, 81 Oxford Street, London W1D 2EU. (Please make sure that ContraSwap Ltd is the first line of the address or we will not receive your magazine.)

About ContraPoints

ContraPoints are the currency in which all deals are traded, making ContraSwap an entirely cashless community

ContraPoints are awarded based solely on your circulation. The following table explains this:

We reward high-visibily circulation with 25% extra ContraPoints. You qualify for this if your controlled requested circulation, plus your subscriptions, plus half your news trade sales make up more than 50% of your total circulation.

If you have any queries please feel free to contact us.

General information

ContraSwap is a new way to arrange advertising barter deals between magazines. Working in publishing, whenever we had spare advertising spaces we often looked at how to swap this space with other magazines, as a free promotion for both parties. We found this to be hard work and often felt there wasn’t time to do this justice. ContraSwap is a new service to shorten the time these deals will take and to ensure both sides gain the maximum exposure.

The economic climate has hit many publications and the advertising downturn is leaving everyone with more and more unsold advertising space. On top of this, marketing budgets have been slashed as companies try to keep costs down. However, a recession is actually a great time to get your brand seen and to attract new readers. Advertising can help you keep or gain a competitive edge. By offering free advertising swaps, ContraSwap helps you to turn unsold advertising space to your advantage.

At the moment the service is completely free of charge to use. As the site develops we plan to add additional features and offer a premium membership with more benefits at a fixed monthly price. We will be consulting with all of our users before this happens and we will aim to keep costs as low as possible. This will not happen before 2010 so take advantage while it is entirely free of charge!

A contra deal is a barter arrangement where two publications agree to carry a page of advertising for each other, free of charge, meaning that it is a straight exchange with no cash changing hands. Deals take place between magazines which have some potential crossover in their readership, but which do not directly compete. For example, a graphic design magazine and a photography magazine do not cover the same topics, but some of their target readership is likely to be interested in both titles.

Quite simply, ContraSwap is all about boosting your magazine’s circulation. By advertising your magazine in related but non-competing titles you can boost both newsstand sales and subscriptions. ContraSwap offers a particularly cost-effective and easy way to boost overseas sales by swapping with overseas titles.

There are three main benefits to using ContraSwap:

1 While standard contra deals can be very effective, they can often be difficult to arrange. If one magazine feels that it has more to gain than the other from a traditional contra deal then the deal may not take place. ContraSwap uses a simple currency called ContraPoints to solve this problem, by removing the need to do a direct swap. Each magazine can spend its ContraPoints where it chooses, for maximum effect.

2. Publications are increasingly looking to boost their overseas circulation into different regions, targeting new demographics and regions. ContraSwap makes it easy to find the publications best suited to your trading needs.

3. ContraSwap smoothes the process of doing the deal, from arranging an advertisement to delivering the artwork.

ContraSwap is an independent private company, registered in England. It was founded in 2009 by Stephan Bisse, the owner of graphic design magazine Grafik. Stephan was looking for a low-cost way to further promote his own magazine, and hoped that ContraSwap would benefit all magazine publishers.

How ContraSwap affects your business

When budget is limited, ContraSwap is a great way to get your products seen by an entirely new audience. Allowing you to test new advertising streams entirely risk free, you can track the response rate and evaluate your success in totally new publications. For marketeers we are having to do more promotions than ever to get new business. ContraSwap enables you to get your message across to a whole group of relevant consumers – great for both brand awareness and potential subscription increases.

It is difficult to sell advertising space right now, so why not swap your space to build up your subscriber base? That way when things pick up you will still have a strong number of magazines sales to use as ammunition in your pitch to potential advertisers.

No, your advertisers will not gain access to ContraSwap, since it is for magazine publishers only. There is no need to offer barter deals to any of your advertisers so you can still continue to enjoy a face to face sales relationship with these people.

No, there is no need to do advertising deals with anyone on ContraSwap unless you choose to do so.

No. There is no guarantee that you will have spaces every month and the advertisers will usually have the better-featured spaces. In addition it is unlikely that your advertisers will be using this website and even if they were you need never accept a request from them.

No, the aim of ContraSwap is to save you time. You can store records of all your deals online or print them for filing. The swaps are much easier than sending a long trail of emails trying to agree on appropriate terms, and we will make sure copies of the advert are sent to you. In terms of admin, the process of requesting and accepting swaps is very quick and simple and should take less than five minutes.

Yes. Once you agree to run an advert on final acceptance you are obliged to run it, as you would be with a face to face deal or any other type of advertising deal. However there is no obligation to make or receive any set number of swaps. See our full terms and conditions for more information.

Yes. You may cancel your ContraSwap account at any time by contacting us. Please see the section of our terms and conditions on Termination for more details.

Yes, you can store up your ContraPoints to spend them at the time that’s best for you. There is no expiration date on ContraPoints.

Please do! We want to provide the best service possible and without knowing what you like and dislike we can’t do this. Your feedback is so important to us that every month you provide feedback you will be entered into a draw to win a bottle of champagne to say thank you.