The Australian to reveal its paywall numbers next month
News Limited will next month finally reveal audited online subscriber numbers for The Australian, which switched on its paywall a year ago.
The publisher will release the data as part of its Audit Bureau of Circulations audit for July to September, which is due to be released on November 6.
The Australian finally switched on the paywall in late October. The move is being watched with interest, not just by News Limited’s local competitors, but globally. The newspaper adopted a freemium model, with some content free, but readers being asked to subscribe to access all content. For SEO reasons, up to five items of content per user per day are also available for free via Google.
Pricing varies from $2.95 a week for a digital only package to $9.95 per week for digital access and the print edition of the newspaper Monday to Saturday.
It is not clear whether News Limited will break down the numbers between digital only subscribers and those who are taking the whole package. It revealed some information in March when it said it had 30,000 digital subscribers, but did not break down how many of those have bought a digital pass, a digital and print package, or made an individual purchase through its tablet apps.
Although Fairfax Media does not have a paywall on smh.com.au and theage.com.au, it has been releasing usage data around its apps and digital replica editions.
The Australian’s paywall was first announced by then boss Richard Freudenstein at the Mumbrella360 conference in June 2011:
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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have they ever released the regular per month paid usage of the ipad app? (ie not cumulative)
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Sweepstake!
More fun than betting on the Melbourne Cup.
More or less than the AFR – anyone?
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i hope its good news for The Australian as i believe paying for online news content is one way to keep our Aussie journalists in jobs. Although that said, releasing your figures on Melbourne Cup day is a sure fire way of burying bad news.
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