Top 50 paywalled US and UK online news publishers revealed (exclusive research)
Plus: New study says giving readers less free content may persuade more to subscribe online and three tech platforms which could help publishers grow ad revenue
Some 50 English language news websites and/or publishers have more than 100,000 subsribers according to our latest 100k Club ranking. The list includes new entrants: Newsquest, The Business of Fashion and Substack-based The Free Press.
The growth of Substack is probably the biggest story to come out of this list. It now has four million paid subscribers to the network of email newsletters and websites which it powers, putting it second only to the New York Times in our ranking.
The US appears to have a much stronger market for online news subscriptions than the UK (even taking into account the fact it is a bigger country).
Only one UK local news publisher makes it on to our list, Newsquest at position 46 with 113,000 subscribers.
In the USA (just looking at publishers with 100,000 or more subscriptions) there are more than four million people paying for online local news.
I suspect the absence of state-funded quality news goliath the BBC in the US is a factor. Publishers such as Reach have also made a strategic decision to focus on a free advertising-funded model driven by a high overall audience number.
Today we also have some, possibly counterintuitive, research around the tactics publishers should use to attract more paying online readers. A major study in Germany and Austria has concluded that the less publishers show readers for free in each article, the more likely readers are to click on ‘subscribe’.
Today we also have the latest in Paul Hood's essential series providing AI tips for news outlets. This week he showcases three tech start-ups which could help free-to-air titles make more money from advertising by using those clever robot brains.
Note: The 100k Club ranking is based on painstaking original research by our own Charlotte Tobitt. She’s pored over company accounts, called in favours and pestered PRs from London to Sydney. If you know of a paywalled news publisher we have missed out please drop her a line and we can look at adding them on to the list (charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk).
On Press Gazette
100k Club: 2025 ranking of world’s biggest news publishers by digital subscribers
Exclusive Press Gazette research reveals how the top 50 leading paywalled news publishers in the world have seen strong growth.
Giving readers less can lead to more subscribers, new research
Study says discounts are best incentive to persuade online readers to subscribe.
Three tech start-ups using AI to boost publisher ad revenue
AI-powered programmatic advertising could offer a boost to free online news publishers, writes Paul Hood in his latest column looking at AI tips for publishers.
Also this week on Press Gazette
Around one third of Observer staff ‘taking redundancy’ ahead of Tortoise transfer
Most generative AI responses based on news content contain inaccuracies
DeepSeek launch underlines value of news content to AI companies
News Corp results cite Sun traffic decline but growing Times subscriptions
FT head of newsletters on how title quadrupled email subscribers in four years
Latest podcast: Newsletter strategy for publishers, a masterclass with the FT's Sarah Ebner
Over four years at the Financial Times head of newsletters for the title Sarah Ebner has helped grow the title's number of email subscribers from just over 400,000 to 1.6 million.
She told Press Gazette that email newsletters are now the biggest driver of reader engagement at the FT. They are also hugely important for driving subscriber loyalty and finding new paying readers as well as providing advertising and subscription revenue in their own right.
In this interview she explains how publishers can supercharge their newsletter strategy.