Reader revenue, paywalls, digital subscriptions — whatever you call it, charging for content online is a key strategic focus for an increasingly large proportion of publishers.
And this bet on growing paying customers is not just the preserve of specialist / B2B titles or large publishing brands. New subscriptions products and services are being rolled out in areas such as local journalism as well as more mainstream news services. An eye-catching example of the latter was the Daily Mail announcing this summer a target of reaching 1m digital subscribers by 2028 — its Mail+ product, which launched last year, has already attracted 325,000 subscribers.
The Daily Mail has come relatively late to the paywall party compared to other national titles, most notably the FT (who first launched a paywall back in 2007) as well as the traditional broadsheet titles, the Times, Telegraph and Guardian. The Mail’s target doesn’t appear pie in the sky — of those titles, both the FT and the Guardian have eclipsed 1m digital subscribers whilst the Times and Telegraph are way in excess of half of that (see box on leading news brands with paywalls at the end of this article). Daily Mail Editor-in-Chief Ted Verity said the three-year subscription ambition was a big target but one he was certain it would achieve given the “unbeatable quality of our journalism” and its “intuitive understanding of what its audience wants”.
And at a smaller scale, there are now more local and regional newspaper and news-sites taking the plunge into paywalls. These vary from new start-ups such as Mill Media and the Bristol Cable through to established print brands growing digital reader revenues. Examples of those include Mediahuis, owner of Irish titles the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish Independent, which has built a subscription base of 100,000 in five years, Newbury News and Media which launched a paywall last year and has 3,000 paying customers, and Cambridge-based publisher Iliffe Media.
What is driving this success in digital subscriptions and what are the main challenges and hurdles facing publishers in this area? As charging readers for online access matures, there is now a growing body of research as well as experience garnered by practitioners which can inform paid-for strategies and tactics.
What is driving demand and growth in subscriptions?
Whilst journalism is struggling to attract some consumers due to factors such as diminishing trust in journalism and news avoidance, demand from others to both view and then pay for content remains robust. This is for three main reasons:
- Cause and purpose over features and benefits. Some publishers are now realising that attracting paying audiences is not purely transactional for audiences but down to their desire to be part of a movement or to support the wider impact and value of journalism. Using mission-led messaging has been a key to the Guardian’s success as well as to the growth in new local and regional paid-for launches. As the Digital News Pricing Report 2025, produced by the Center for Sustainable Media, puts it: “People pay for news for complex reasons involving emotional connection and belief in journalism’s societal purpose.”
- Bundling benefits. Experimentation and development of new products and services from news brands has led to them being able to offer more for their customers. Hence the rise of bundling, the poster boy of this being the New York Times. Half of their subscribers pay for the full bundle (comprising news, sport, games, cookery, games and its Wirecutter product review brand) which in some respects is a return to their roots. As Greg Piechota, researcher-in-residence at International News Media Association observes in its recent Beyond the Funnel report, the NYT spent decades de-bundling, and now it is re-bundling. “The New York Times is becoming more like it was in 1987 (when its print edition was over 1,600 pages).” Growing evidence shows that bundling has a positive impact on subscriber retention as well as customer lifetime value.
- Beyond the article. Publishers are now providing content through multiple formats and channels making significant bets and investment into newsletters, videos, podcasts and subscriber-only online and face to face events. This has the dual benefit of providing more value to customers as well as establishing a closer and more intimate relationship between brands and audiences.
As well as large scale news brands, smaller and nimbler players can also profit. The rise of paid newsletters via platforms such as Substack in the last couple of years has ripped up what had been the standard rulebook of digital subscriptions, according to Mill Media founder Joshi Herrmann. Speaking at the Publisher Summit (run by Media Voices) in June, he said scrappier start-ups offering low volumes of content can charge as much if not more than the behemoths such as the NYT. “That opens up a tonne of interesting opportunities in terms of innovation because people can do things that are very low cost, low [production] quality, and actually build up quite a lot of recurring revenue,” he said.
Implementing paywalls — key tactics and evolving models
Setting business goals and strategies for subscriptions is relatively simple — achieving them involves a whole lot of trial and error for publishers and increasing amounts of complexity and technical expertise. Consumer behaviour and demands are changing and there is an ever-evolving toolset available to publishers to run the back-end systems and fulfilment as well as build audience profiles, understand user behaviours and create more sophisticated customer journeys and tailored messaging.
One area that has evolved considerably is the paywall model digital publishers can set up for users which is crucial in trying to convert a fly-by or registered user to a paying one. Publishers can now set up hard paywalls, metered access, a freemium model or dynamic one (which is personalised based on user demographics) — or implement a mix of these with a hybrid model.
Dynamic and hybrid models, many of which are underpinned by artificial intelligence software, are relatively new but fast-growing. According to INMA research (they track the performance of 288 news brands worldwide), the use of these models has quadrupled since 2020 and brands using the models saw subscription revenue increase the fastest. These models also allow companies to balance their paid-for business with ensuring they have the required amount of digital advertising inventory. “Smart paywalls are like the Swiss-army knives, optimising for both reader revenue and ads in real time,” says INMA’s Piechota.
Other lessons that publishers are learning:
- Pricing: start high, don’t undervalue. The Digital News Pricing Report counsels against starting cheap on price — on launch, fans and heavy users who are likely to sign up are less price sensitive and starting lower gives you less wiggle room when discounting and on pricing more widely. Daniel Gorringe, an expert in B2B subscriptions having run leading brands such as HSJ and Compliance Week, says high quality journalism is under-priced particularly if it is married with access to relevant data. The combination of access reporters have with experts or leaders in their field with the ability to interpret data is “incredibly high value” he says.
- No more free trials. Trials become a more important tactic as you try and convert less engaged or price sensitive audiences — but don’t make them free says the Digital News Pricing Report. Heavily discounted trials are more strategic as they create “a sense of value and commitment,” the report says.
Whilst there are some consistent patterns and lessons emerging for publishers, there is no one-size-fits-all for making digital subscriptions work. One case in point — some brands provide editorial team with large amounts of performance data on paid content and tie their output closely with business objectives. Alma Media, a Finnish publisher who launched a paywall in 2012, introduced direct sales targets for its journalists in 2018. This contrasts with the New York Times which has more recently reduced the amount of data it provides journalists on the basis that this information could result in reporters chasing hits over quality.
Threats and challenges for digital subscriptions
It’s no surprise that whilst AI offers publishers opportunities in developing their subscriptions businesses — from product development to more sophisticated and real-time data and personalisation — it also presents the potential to undermine key building blocks to success. The most significant is audience reach where AI chatbots and search could “decouple content discovery from consumption” as Piechota puts it. This could significantly restrict the ability for publishers to reach new customers who would typically come via traditional search engines.
Whilst traffic has yet to be significantly impacted, there is likely to be a change in the customer value chain which requires publishers to plan accordingly. Speaking at the Press Gazette Future of Media Technology conference in September, Economist President Luke Bradley-Jones said his firm was very focused on how “to continue to grow and thrive in a post search world”. He said the firm was concentrating on building a moat around its brand by making sure its content is “unique and can’t be found elsewhere”, ensuring it has direct relationships with its customers and investing in different types of discoverability such as brand advertising and partnerships. The firm recently dipped its toe in the latter by launching a new product on the Substack platform.
Other challenges include upcoming legislation which includes the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) which introduces requirements for handling renewals, cancellations and customer consent.
Publishers have come a long way in growing their digital subscription operations and audiences over the past decade but it’s very clear that they can’t stand still. Speaking about her experience in this area for over a decade, Johanna Suhonen, VP of content business at Alma Media told delegates at the Future of Media Technology conference: “You have to rethink everything all the time.”
Subs figures
- FT: 1.4m digital subscribers
- Guardian: 1.3m ‘recurring supporters’
- Daily Mail: 325,000 digital subscribers for Mail+ and is targeting 1m subscribers by 2028
- New York Times: 11.3m digital subscribers
- Wall Street Journal: 4.2m digital subscribers
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
