The Financial Times’s AI-powered paywall has helped improve key subscription business metrics, such as average revenue per user and lifetime value, but it hasn’t led to more readers converting into subscribers, reports Sara Guaglione of Digiday.
Guaglione writes, “The paywall went live to 95% of the FT’s global readers that have opted in to sharing their data or registered on its site (5% are part of the ‘control group,’ Spooner said) as of the first week of January, following months of testing with a smaller group. The paywall was developed in collaboration with AI firm Sub(x).
“The paywall determines the right number of free articles to show each user and the best subscription offer to surface. Spooner declined to share the number of articles readers can access for free. The model can analyze about 50 user data points, such as time of day, location, industry, job seniority, engagement and recency, frequency and volume (RFV) — all while factoring in the user’s likelihood to subscribe and potential LTV.
“While the top tier premium subscription offering is not discounted, discounts for its standard subscription tier range from 10% to 50% (the latter for an annual subscription). A premium subscription currently costs $75 a month, while a standard subscription costs $540 a year (the latter was one was on sale for $319 when this reporter checked yesterday). The paywall model does not have the ability to change subscription prices.
“However, the paywall can help retain a subscriber at risk of churning by offering a lower tier product, Spooner said.”
Read more here.