A small audience that knows you is worth more than a large one that does not. Specialist titles may often think they are too small to charge. We think they are the best placed to start.
The traditional view of reader revenue is a numbers game: big audience, small percentage converted, large total. On that view, a title with 20,000 monthly readers hardly seems worth the effort.
It misses what specialist titles have that large ones spend heavily trying to buy: readers who already care.
Loyalty is the asset
Very big media companies typically turn only a few per cent of their readers into paying customers at best, and the median news brand converts under 1 per cent. Specialist titles tend to do better (The Athletic, Barron’s, The Economist and Which? each convert more than 10 per cent of monthly visitors), because the people who turn up are not passing through. They came for this subject, this community, this writer.
What that audience has usually lacked is a way to pay that fits how they use you. A monthly subscription asks a lot of someone who visits a few times a month. A small price per article, or per day, asks very little.
How it works on your site
You choose what carries a price. Most of your content, ideally, with some left free to bring new readers in.
You set the price and the free point. A daily title might charge per article and make the rest of the day free after two articles have been paid for. A weekly title might unlock the week after four. It’s up to you.
Readers pay from a single wallet. They register once, add credit and pay with one click. Anyone who already has an Axate wallet from another title can pay you straight away.
You can add a subscription alongside. Your most committed readers will benefit from a subscription that might offer better value for these highly engaged readers
Your brand, your readers, your terms
Some specialist titles, and known writers, have moved to newsletter platforms to charge for their work. That can work, but it usually means building on someone else’s platform, under their brand.
Axate sits on your own site as a small tab. You keep your brand, your relationship with your readers and your pricing. We do not sit between you and the people who read you.
Simple set up
Small teams do not have time for complex integration projects. Axate has deliberately built a system that is easy to integrate and allows for flexibility and experimentation.
What decides the result
Most of it is in your hands: what you publish, how much you give away free, and how free access works. If 90 per cent of your content stays free, results will be close to nothing. Price most of it, and give people a reason to come back.
Try it
Our reader revenue assessment gives an indicative picture for your title from three numbers: your monthly audience, whether you sell a subscription, and what it costs or would cost. If the numbers are worth having, book a half-hour call and we will get you set up.
[Book a call] · [Try the assessment]