A PAYWALL THAT PEOPLE WANT TO CLIMB

In 2018, The Times had tons of anonymous users reading the site for zilch in return. So we did everyone’ favorite game, “how about we…” From there we re-envisioned how the paywall could function for anonymous readers. AKA, how could it be less of a “bleep you”?

After many design iterations, and multiple rounds of qualitative feedback, we created a paywall that was a “Fair Trade”. In exchange for a second free article, all we were asking was for a few small things in return—their email and their interests (via NYT newsletters). We weren’t just looking for another address to send sales emails to—we were trying to build a relationship that drove sales through behavior, not flashy price points.

This journey netted 587,000 news subscribers in Q1—leading NYT Cooking and Games to adopt the same model.