Ad revenue is going. Reader revenue replaces it. We build the platform it runs on - owned by you.
A national title, a leading regional, or a magazine with real reach
- 01 Reader revenue you own subscriptions, direct, no cut taken
- 02 Your audience, your data the reader relationship stays yours
- 03 The technical part is ours paywall, apps, scale - all handled
What this is
A subscription platform of your own, owned outright.
Paywall, subscriber accounts, digital editions and billing, under your masthead. Readers subscribe, pay and read on your site and apps. No one takes a cut of the subscription. The reader relationship is yours.
Your newsroom publishes. We build what sits underneath it, host it, keep it fast when a story breaks, and support your team and your subscribers.
What changes is who owns the revenue, and who owns the reader.
Ad revenue is falling. Reader revenue has already overtaken it.
Reader revenue is the strategic line now. The question is whether you own what it runs on, or rent it.
Reader revenue you could be building.
Two worked examples, for publications not yet running subscriptions seriously. Conservative inputs, all sourced. Move the sliders to your own numbers.
1% conversion is the floor: INMA's 166-publisher median is 0.6%, The Audiencers found ~0.76% on freemium paywalls. $11/month is INMA's global median digital-subscription ARPU. Niche and specialist titles convert higher - the sliders take your figures.
At a 10% cut, the national example hands over $1.06M a year.
Owned outright: nothing. The subscriber list: yours. The archive: yours.
One home for the whole publication -
and the reader relationship that comes with it.
Website and native iOS and Android apps, built around how your publication earns - your paywall model, your archive, your masthead. Extendable when you need more.
The paywall, your way
Metered, hard, freemium or hybrid - enforced server-side, so gated content is genuinely protected, not hidden in the browser. Yours to set and change as you learn.
Subscriptions & an archive that earns
Monthly and annual plans, founding-reader and group tiers, digital editions, and a browsable archive that keeps converting new subscribers long after publication.
What is exposed is your call
Paid content behind authentication, kept out of normal public crawling. Free previews on your terms, linked to your masthead - so you're attributed, not just scraped.
Owned, not rented
Subscribers, billing and the direct line stay with you, on infrastructure you control. Nothing sits between you and your readers, and no one takes a cut of the subscription.
Everything technical is ours to carry.
Stable, fast, holds when a story breaks.
Website and mobile apps on a stack that scales to millions of readers and carries any feature you'll need.
No licence hell, no vendor stack to stitch together. Paywall, subscriptions, editions and apps - built and run by us, on infrastructure that doesn't flinch at a traffic spike.
We keep it fast, secure and current over the years. Your editors publish, your readers subscribe. The technical side is never yours to worry about.
Why publishers trust us to build it.
You'd be handing the engine of your reader revenue to an outside team. That's not a small thing to trust. Here is why others have - and stayed:
Building software for a living
Two decades of shipping - custom frameworks to full content platforms. Building for the web since before the subscription era began.
Our longest-running client relationship
Sixteen years. Sixteen chances to leave, sixteen renewals. The software kept working; the people who built it kept answering.
Content platforms we've run for over a decade
Subscription and membership platforms we built and have kept improving for more than ten years - the track record behind yours.
Our cut of your subscription revenue
We charge to build and to run. We never take a share of what your readers pay you - unlike everyone who would.
Regional, or national?
Both built, run and supported end to end.
Regional
For a leading regional title bringing reader revenue in-house - website, apps, paywall and archive, built around how you earn and run for you.
- Your platformWebsite and native apps, paywall, subscriptions, digital editions, archive, all in one.
- Built around your modelMetered or hard paywall, your tiers, your masthead, not a template.
- Run for youHosting, security, updates, scale for traffic spikes, all handled.
- Full supportYours and your subscribers' - their billing and access questions come to us.
- Migration includedYour subscriber list and archive brought across, no overnight switch.
+ from $599/mo - run, supported, kept current
Priced at roughly one conservative year of the reader revenue it builds. From year two on, that revenue is yours to keep.
Request a callNational
For a national title at scale - the full platform across web and apps, with team and corporate access and a direct line to the people who built it.
- Everything in RegionalThe full platform, built for national-scale traffic and volume.
- Team & corporate accessSeat-based and site licences for trade and B2B revenue.
- Editions & offlineDigital editions and offline reading across every device.
- A direct line to the people who built itYou reach us, not a queue.
- PriorityYour requests move ahead, launch days and breaking spikes covered.
+ from $999/mo - priority, direct line, apps and editions
Priced at roughly one conservative year of the reader revenue it builds - a fraction of what the platform cut, or an in-house build, would run over the same years.
Request a call"From" becomes a firm number on your strategy call - scope moves it: editions, team access, migration complexity, integrations. Displayed prices are anchored to the conservative examples above; your real numbers set the final figure. You see the full quote before you commit.
Already renting a platform?
Here is the cut you'd keep.
A 10% cut, at your scale, is the decimal point moved one place.
$11/month is INMA's global median ARPU. 10% is Substack's published rate; others charge a cut or a fee that scales with your list. Owning it outright is a flat cost instead - the build and the monthly below - not a percentage that grows as you do.
Fair questions. Straight answers.
We have an in-house team already. Why you?
Your team keeps the current system running - and was never resourced to build a modern subscription platform, paywall and apps from scratch alongside the day job. We build that, hand it over, and run it or work with your team, however you want it. The team stays; the thing they didn't have time for gets built.
Do we have to move everything at once?
No. Your new platform runs alongside what you have. We migrate your archive and subscriber list deliberately, with reader messaging and a smooth sign-up, not a risky overnight cutover. You keep publishing and earning throughout.
Can you really keep our archive out of AI scrapers?
Paid content sits behind server-side authentication and out of normal public crawling; free previews are attributed to your masthead. No system stops every form of copying, and we won't claim otherwise - but you decide what is exposed and on what terms. That is more control than an open archive on a rented platform.
And if you were to go under?
You hold access to your platform and your data from day one, and we plan for the worst case from the start. Twenty years in and going strong, we don't expect to vanish - but if the worst happened, your service stays up and your content and subscribers remain yours.
The ad line keeps falling either way.
The question is what you build in its place - and who owns it.
A limited number of builds at a time - every platform is custom, and we don't outsource. Apply below and we'll run your exact numbers on a call.
Apply for your strategy callA short, direct conversation - no sales script, no queue. Your title, roughly your readership, and where reader revenue sits today. We run your real numbers and you leave with a real quote, whether or not you build with us.