How Wired has increased subscribers since it launched a paywall

Kayleigh Barber of Folio writes about how Wired magazine has boosted its subscribers since it launched a paywall a year ago.

Barber writes, “And while that fact didn’t directly influence the decisions going into building the paywall, one difference was that Wired’s included the subscriber benefit of getting an ad-free digital experience, which is something that the brand’s readers explicitly expressed they wanted—and has, so far, worked.

“‘Our subscription numbers were amazing,’ he says. ‘They’re over 100,000 subscriptions in the year after we launched the paywall, which is a crazy number when you compare it to the number of digital subscriptions we had the previous year.’ With roughly 30,000 subscriptions prior to the paywall, the number is up 272 percent YOY.

“This area of revenue is also one of the fastest growing streams for the brand, according to Thompson, and while 100,000 people signing up for the introductory offer of $10 for a year of both print and digital access may only seem like an incremental number, the lifetime value of each subscriber is what he and his team see the promise in.

“Following the first year, the renewal rate is $19.99, but similar to The New Yorker—which doubled its renewal rate during the time Thompson was there—he hopes Wired will also be able to increase its price and justify doing so by adding value to the subscription in the form of more writers, platforms and integrations with other products.”

Read more here.