How can you set a price that reflects the value of your product AND is acceptable to your readers? This was the topic of a brilliant panel at the World News Media Congress 2025 organized by WAN-IFRA in Krakow. Three experts shared their very concrete strategies for increasing revenue while maintaining subscriber satisfaction: Flavia Barbosa Ferreira (Head of Retention at Le Monde), Mariah Craddick (Executive Director, Product at The Atlantic), and Danuta Bregula (Director of Paid Products at Axel Springer Poland).
Le Monde: increase price but with ‘finesse’
With 665,000 paying subscribers, Le Monde is the leading French-language daily. Half of its revenue comes from subscriptions (35% digital, 15% print), making pricing optimization a direct lever for profitability.
Flavia Barbosa Ferreira is Director of Retention at Le Monde. Last year, her team conducted a series of experiments to increase prices without harming profitability or reader trust.
The situation before 2020
At the start of the project, Le Monde’s digital subscription offer was €1 for the first month, then €9.90/month for the first year.
This offer made it possible to acquire a significant number of subscribers…
…but failed to retain them in the long term as the price rose to €13 per month in the second year, then to €17.90 in the third.
A new set of offers (after 2020)
Thanks to the development of an internal fraud detection system called “Capping” — which blocks users who are simultaneously trying to access to articles from multiple devices using the same account, i.e. account sharing — Le Monde was able to confidently promote multi-account subscriptions (B2C and B2B)….
This has led to an increase in “duo” and “family” subscriptions, which are sold at higher prices.
Next step: price increase
The Le Monde team conducted an A/B test of a price increase on 10,000 subscribers, who were divided into two groups: +$1/month and +$2/month. An informational email was sent in December for an increase to be applied in January.
The results were analyzed the following March:
“Following this test, we observed slightly better retention with the €1 per month increase compared to the €2 increase. Out of caution, and given that this was the first price adjustment under the new pricing structure, we chose to start with the €1 monthly increase, which was considered less risky—while still generating a significant increase in revenue. For certain cohorts with lower initial prices, we opted for increases greater than $1, based on the findings of this initial test.”
What Le Monde took away from it
Their ARPU has been growing steadily since 2020, and the presentation of subscription offers has been optimized for greater clarity and conversion.
Rather than starting with price, Le Monde begins by improving the offering, perceived value, user experience, and fraud prevention. Only then do they adjust the price. This is a deliberate “price-last” approach.
The Atlantic: make the value tangible for subscribers
With prices set at $79.99/year (digital), $89.99/year (print + digital), and $120/year (premium ad-free), The Atlantic is below its competitors in terms of price, but above average in terms of retention and growth: +15% subscribers YoY, and a retention rate of over 70%.
Mariah Craddick divides subscriber benefits into three categories:
- Essentials: unlimited access, newsletters, mobile app, narrated articles, digital issues.
- Utilities: article saving, sharing, reading mode, app customization.
- Bonuses: subscriber-only podcasts, games, live events, merchandise.
They measure value through:
- the percentage of new subscribers who performed a key action within the first seven days.
- the proportion of subscribers with “engaged” or “core” status.
- a retention rate that is four points higher among those who completed on-site onboarding.
- Articles narrated via 11 Labs, the article sharing feature, and the premium mobile experience (particularly on iPad) are key differentiators.
One of the secrets of their success? On-site onboarding.
Subscribers who complete the onboarding process on The Atlantic website retain 4 points more than those who do not!
Onet Premium: the most daring bundle in Europe
In Poland, Ringier Axel Springer launched Onet Premium, a bundled subscription giving access to more than 15 major brands (Onet, Poland’s leading news site, Newsweek, Forbes, Politico, Business Insider, National Geographic, and others). Together, these brands reach 22 million Polish users every month.
The offer includes:
- exclusive items from several brands.
- 150 episodes of exclusive podcasts per month.
- 30,000 audio articles per month.
- an average listening time of 67 minutes and 10 hours per month per user in the audio app.
- cross-promotional newsletters, subscriber events, and editorial formats shared between brands.
To achieve this, they created a unified identity driven by editorial consistency and cross-brand storytelling, proving the value of the bundle through its impact beyond each individual brand and building a community around the power of critical thinking.
As a result, between 2019 and 2024, they achieved rapid growth:
- +91% average annual revenue growth;
- -32% churn rate;
- +15% share of highly engaged subscribers;
- +58% revenue growth between 2023 and 2024.
Key takeaway: To prove the value of the bundle and move from a “price-first” to a “price-last” model, the value proposition must be consistent, clear, accessible, and obvious to the user.
