36 paywalls from the most popular paid subscription news websites in the world
You’ll likely recognize this infographic from Visual Capitalist. Published in 2021, it shows the list of news sites with the most digital subscribers worldwide. Based on figures from the publishers’ association FIPP, the infographic so clearly presents the media titles for which the public was prepared to pay, that it’s been making the rounds of newsrooms and their marketing departments ever since its release.
We decided to take a look at this list of clearly very successful digital subscription sites and screenshot each of their paywalls with the goal of inspiring your own model.
Of course, it’s widely understood that a paywall is only a tool, and not the reason why a reader subscribes. However, as the main conversion point of anonymous users into paying customers thanks to its ability to frustrate the reader just the right amount, paywalls are vital for a high performing subscription model.
Our methodology
- All screenshots were done in July 2023, in France, on a laptop with a 13” screen
- We always accepted cookies when arriving on the website
- Texts on the paywalls were sometimes automatically translated into English when the publisher’s site was in a language other than English or French. However some blocked automated translations
- There are 38 publishers on the visual above, however 2 of these publishers didn’t have a paywall
