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The Daily Mail introduced its first paywall for its U.S. edition on Tuesday, marking a shift in its digital strategy as the general interest publisher seeks to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising.
DailyMail+ is part of a broader plan from the privately owned title to attract 1 million paying subscribers by 2029, according to Tom Lowe, the manager of digital subscriptions at Daily Mail parent company DMG Media.
It will debut at an introductory rate of $1.99 for the first year, after which the price will rise to a steep $9.99 per month. It includes an 80% reduction in ads, unrestricted access to Daily Mail content, and an invitation to an exclusive newsletter.
Despite its ambitious goals, the paywall will be very limited in scope, gating only about 5% of content across the site, Lowe added.
“We have a strong advertising business, but there has been a desire to diversify away and reduce our reliance on it,” said Lowe. “We intend on being a massive news site with a significant subscription product, but we have no plans of being a primarily paywalled site.”
As it turns to embrace even a limited subscription product, the publisher joins a growing list of publishers looking to spin up new lines of revenue by tapping into their most ardent users. In recent months, Vox Media brought a paywall to The Verge, BuzzFeed introduced a subscription tier to HuffPost, and Vice Media tied its print product to a monthly membership.
The global news organization rolled out a similar product in its U.K. and Australian markets 12 months ago, which has since generated 135,000 paying subscribers. It also has a legacy subscription product for tablets, called Mail+, which has around 90,000 paying subscribers. It wouldn’t offer specific projections for its U.S. venture.
Hand-picked articles and key new hires
While only a small portion of Daily Mail content will go behind the paywall, every article that does will be hand-selected by editorial staff, said U.S. editor in chief Katie Davies.
This analog approach is meant to keep the workflow simple and ensure that gated stories all have a distinct Daily Mail sensibility and an element of exclusivity.
