A paywall blocks users and asks or requires them to pay for subscription in order to access content. And with digital reader revenue strategies on the rise across the globe, paywalls are popping up across publisher’s websites.
Here are 130+ paywall benchmark examples to inspire your own paywalling efforts!
*Note: these have been collected since October 2022 and are continuously added to, meaning the paywall you see here may not be live on the publisher’s website right now.
The Times of India 🇮🇳 Estadao 🇧🇷 The Guardian 🇬🇧 De Telegraaf 🇳🇱 The Rio Times 🇧🇷 The Philadelphia Inquirer 🇺🇸 The Orange Country Register 🇺🇸 The Courier 🏴 Nd.nl 🇳🇱 The Globe and Mail 🇨🇦 The Irish Times 🇮🇪 Irish Independent 🇮🇪 Le Point 🇫🇷 Dagens Nyheter 🇸🇪 South China Morning Post 🇭🇰 El Mundo 🇪🇸 Alternatives Economiques 🇫🇷 Houston Chronicle 🇺🇸 Fyens.dk 🇩🇰 Harvard Business Review 🇺🇸 Il Sole 24 Ore 🇮🇹 Le Journal du Dimanche 🇫🇷 Kleine Zeitung 🇦🇹 Le Nouvel Obs 🇫🇷 La Voz de Galicia 🇪🇸 The Seattle Times 🇺🇸 NZ Herald 🇳🇿 The Economist 🇬🇧 The Globe and Mail 🇨🇦 The Initium 🇸🇬 The NYT 🇺🇸 Die Welt 🇩🇪 Herald Sun 🇦🇺 Keskisuomalainen 🇫🇮 The Washington Post 🇺🇸 Apple TV 🇺🇸 Berner Zeitung 🇨🇭 DN 🇸🇪 Bloomberg 🇺🇸 De Standaard 🇧🇪 Disney+ 🇺🇸 ELLE 🇫🇷 Manorama Online 🇮🇳 MasterClass 🇺🇸 Neos Kosmos 🇦🇺 🇬🇷 Netflix 🇺🇸 News24 🇿🇦 Nikkei 🇯🇵 The Herald 🇬🇧 The Standard 🇰🇪 The Times 🇬🇧 The Toronto Star 🇨🇦 Večernji list 🇭🇷 South China Morning Post 🇭🇰 L’Équipe 🇫🇷 O Globo 🇧🇷 Publico 🇵🇹 Luxembourg Times 🇱🇺 Nikkei Asia 🇯🇵 Courrier International 🇫🇷 Le Progrès 🇫🇷 La Vanguardia 🇪🇸 Financial Times 🇬🇧 Sydney Morning Herald 🇦🇺 The Africa Report Les Jours 🇫🇷 Fakt 🇵🇱 BZ Berner Zeitung 🇨🇭 Dennik N 🇸🇮 Die Presse 🇦🇹 The Business Times 🇸🇬 Aachener Zeitung 🇩🇪 Foreign Policy 🇺🇸 Gazzetta dello Sports 🇮🇹 Heidi News 🇨🇭 Il sole 24 🇮🇹 Leeuwarder Courant 🇳🇱 Post and Courier 🇺🇸 Tagesspiegel 🇩🇪 Jakarta Post 🇵🇭 The Philadelphia Inquirer 🇺🇸 The Seattle Times 🇺🇸 The Star Tribune 🇺🇸 Wired 🇺🇸 Adformatie 🇳🇱 Aftenposten 🇳🇴 Algemeen Dagblad 🇳🇱 Belfast Telegraph 🇬🇧 Bloomberg 🇺🇸 Centre France 🇫🇷 Chicago Sun-Times 🇺🇸 Clarin 🇦🇷 de Volkskrant 🇳🇱 DNA 🇫🇷 Expressen 🇸🇪 Folha de S.Paulo 🇧🇷 Gulf News 🇦🇪 L’Humanité 🇫🇷 Les Echos 🇫🇷 Manorama Online 🇮🇳 Medium 🇺🇸 News24 🇿🇦 O Globo 🇧🇷 Post and Corrier 🇺🇸 Publico 🇵🇹 Southern Star 🇮🇪 TAZ 🇩🇪 The i Paper 🇬🇧 The Irish Times 🇮🇪 The New Yorker 🇺🇸 The Straits Times 🇸🇬 Zero Hora 🇧🇷 
The Minnesota Star Tribune 🇺🇸 (2025) 
Helsingo-Sanomat 🇫🇮 
Le Figaro 🇫🇷 
The Globe and Mail 🇨🇦 
VG 🇸🇪 
Mediapart 🇫🇷 
Business Insider 🇺🇸 
Gazeta Wyborcza 🇵🇱 
Aftenbladet 🇸🇪 
Boston Globe 🇺🇸 
The Atlantic 🇺🇸 
Corriere della Sera 🇮🇹 
Le Monde 🇫🇷 
Bild 🇩🇪 
Caixin 🇨🇳 
The Athletic 🇺🇸 The Wall Street Journal 🇺🇸 
The Financial Times 🇬🇧 (2025)
Paywall best practices to takeaway:
✅ Consider a soft conversion strategy, such as registration, to increase engagement prior to fully blocking the reader
✅ Ensure users have the chance to discover the value of your premium content
✅ Communicate a strong value proposition
✅ Include brand colors, selecting a single color to represent subscription
✅ In a freemium model, label premium content to reduce frustration
✅ Integrate other funnel steps into the paywall (such as the offers, payment or data collection) to reduce clicks and potential friction points
✅ Work on optimizing paywall visibility rate, aiming to balance frustration and engagement (we found 80% to be optimal, but A/B testing is recommended to find the best visibility for your publication)
✅ Make subscription easy, such as by offering account creation through Facebook/Google or payment through PayPal or Apple
✅ If you’ve already collected key data points (such as name or content interests) make use of it to personalize the paywall and experience. For instance, you could build a subscription offer suited to content consumption habits, or adapt the value proposition to their profile
