Digital Publishing
1 min read

$2.31/week: That’s what a digital newspaper subscription costs

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The average U.S. price for a digital newspaper subscription is $2.31 per week (£1.64), according to a new report from the American Press Institute. This equates to approx. $10 per month or $120 per year.

This represents a decrease from 2016 when the average price for a digital newspaper was pegged at $3.11 per week.

In the API survey, circulation executives said market testing and ownership edicts were the most important considerations when setting price, followed by industry norms, then competitor prices. Some companies, like McClatchy, standardised their pricing across all the papers they owned; for other companies, like Gannett, it varied according to the publication in question.

Of particular note is the fact that discounted trial subscriptions result in higher conversion rates than free trial subscriptions, if for no other reason than because discounted trials require some kind of payment information entry. Indeed, free trials resulted in a conversion rate of less than 25%, while discounted trials resulted in conversion rates of at least 26% (though the majority was at least 76%).

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