City Research Online

Abstract

Our study investigates how newspapers’ paywall strategies are associated with whether visitors (1) begin and (2) finish the process of taking out an online news subscription. Firstly, we investigate correlations between showing various “teaser” elements on paywalled articles and whether visitors start the subscription process by clicking a “subscribe now”-type button. Visitors clicking that button are usually shown specific subscription offers. We also investigate the associations between these offers and whether visitors finally subscribe. We find that showing a standfirst/deck or introductory paragraph/sentences on a paywalled article significantly reduces the odds of visitors clicking the “subscribe now” button. Some visitors may believe they have gathered enough information from these teaser elements and decide not to subscribe to read further. Regarding finishing the subscription process, our results show that offering a discount significantly increases the odds of people paying for subscription. The other subscription offers—offering an ePaper, base subscription price, length and cost of trails, and offering smart devices or small gifts—were mostly not associated with the decision to subscribe. This study has practical implications for paywall design. Reducing the information density of teaser elements on paywalled articles and offering discounts may help newspapers increase their online subscriber numbers.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on whichthis article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent
Publisher Keywords:	Consumer behaviour, digital subscription, paid content, paywall design, paywall strategies, reader revenue, trace data, newspapers
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity School of Communication & Creativity > Journalism
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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