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, The Atlantic and Onet all describe a price-last approach: fix the offer, the perceived value and the user experience first, and only then move the price > Le Monde built account-sharing detection first, which let it sell duo, family and B2B tiers confidently. It then tested a rise on 10,000 subscribers: plus one euro retained better than plus two > The Atlantic sits below competitors on price yet above them on retention, over 70%, and growth. Subscribers who complete its on-site onboarding retain four points better than those who don't > The Atlantic sorts subscriber benefits into essentials, utilities and bonuses, a taxonomy worth stealing. It measures whether they land by tracking key actions taken in a subscriber's first seven days > Onet Premium bundles more than fifteen Polish brands, from Newsweek to National Geographic, behind one subscription. Between 2019 and 2024 revenue grew 91% a year on average and churn fell 32%
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.
