FAQ

How do I find what membership plans I can choose from?

We have membership plans for individuals, institutions, as well as prepaid, longer-term plans. Just go to our membership overview page and you'll see all the available options.

I'm new to Civil Beat, how do I subscribe?

  1. Click on the Subscribe Now button at the top of every page or go to our membership overview page using the links at the bottom of each page.
  2. Review the membership options and click on the "Buy Now" button for the membership plan you would like to purchase.
  3. You will be redirected to PayPal to complete your purchase. Just enter the payment information in the checkout flow and complete your purchase. A pre-existing PayPal account is not required but if you have one you can sign in and use it to make things go even faster.
  4. When you complete your purchase you will be be redirected to Civil Beat and can immediately enjoy our content!

Note: Once you’re logged in, you should not have to sign in again unless you sign out.

I’m a Civil Beat member, why am I being asked to pay when I try to view content on your site?

There could be a bunch of reasons why this is happening. Normally one of the following makes things better:

  1. Make sure that you're signed in to Civil Beat. If you see your name and username (in parenthesis) at the top left corner of the page, that means you're signed in. If you're not signed in, we don't know who you are and don't know what to show you.
  2. If you are signed in, go to your membership page and make sure that you still have an active membership plan. Sometimes a member's plan will get canceled (e.g., we were not able to bill you using the payment information you provided). If there was a payment problem, please check to see if the funding source linked to your PayPal account has expired or changed. You can do this by logging into your PayPal account on the PayPal website.
  3. Try doing a "hard refresh" of your browser. A hard refresh is Shift + R on a Mac and Ctrl + F5 on a PC. Sometimes your computer just gets out of sync with our computers and this helps reset things.
  4. If you are trying to view a topic page (the pages with green text and bars), please note that only full members have access to these pages. Daily members do not.
  5. If you have tried the things above and things still don't seem to look right, email us at with your username or member number and the page you’re trying to access and we'll do our best to work with you to figure things out!

I canceled my Civil Beat subscription and would like to re-subscribe — how do I do that?

  1. Sign in to your Civil Beat account.
  2. Go to the membership page
  3. Select the membership plan of your choice by clicking on the "Pay Now" button.

I want to receive the Morning Beat email at a different email address, how do I change that?

  1. Sign in to your Civil Beat account and click on Manage Account in the top left corner
  2. Select Contact Prefs on the left side bar
  3. Change the Contact Email to your preferred email address and click Update.

Note: Changing this email address has no impact on your PayPal account.

Do you have other membership types?

Yes, we do!

We offer Institutional Memberships that allow up to 25 users in the same group full access to Civil Beat, excluding commenting privileges. You can purchase a six-month membership for $299.99 or a twelve-month membership for $599.99 and get one month free.

We also offer Prepaid Memberships for individuals that provides full access. You can get a six-month membership ($119.99) or twelve-month membership ($239.99), and get one month free.

Please note that Institutional and Prepaid memberships may be paid via a one-time credit card payment using a purchase authorization form. They do not automatically renew. All purchases are subject to the Hawaii and City and County of Honolulu General Excise Tax of 4.712%.

For more information, please visit our membership overview page or email .