How newspaper paywalls succeed

It is still early days for newspaper paywalls. They don't always work, yet the experience so far says successful paywalls have four things in common.

Paywalls work for business newspapers like The National Business Review (NBR), The Australian Financial Review, The Economist and The Financial Times.

Commentators often say paywalls and subscriptions work for niche titles providing specialist coverage and editorial quality.

This is true. For example, I work for CommsDay, which is a successful specialist niche title covering the telecommunications market. CommsDay doesn’t use a paywall – it is a daily PDF newsletter.

However there is more to getting readers to pay for editorial than occupying a specialist niche.

The must haves for successful paywalls

I’ve identified three other must haves:

• Editorial quality. The above titles are editorially excellent and professional. They are recognised as being the best in their field.
• A well-heeled audience. People who buy online subscriptions are richer than average readers. Less well off readers do not tend to pay for online publications. Business people often have personal or company-wide budgets for buying media. Your chances of getting someone to pay for editorial is boosted if the purchase can go on the firm's credit card. Double that if the subscription fee can be a tax deduction.
• Quick. Paywalls work best when readers need information fast. They have to find it more convenient to whip out the credit card and pay for a subscription than walk to the local shop and buy a print copy of the same publication, spend 30 minutes Googling for information or faff about trying to circumvent the paywall. Urgency is your friend.