Spain’s Eldiario Newspaper Uses Pay-What-You-Want Model

In 2012, Ignacio Escolar launched Eldiario (The Daily), an online-only newspaper with nine staffers featuring a fee-based model that allows readers to pay whatever they want to access the digital content — even if that meant paying nothing, according to a Bloomberg report Friday (Nov. 12).

Escolar, who had been a journalist for nearly 20 years when he launched Eldiario, has seen it grow into Spain’s most-read digital newspaper, with 61,000 paying subscribers — just behind El Pais, which has been around since the 1970s. Two years later, the Guardian also launched a pay-what-you-want model.

“We wanted to cater to readers who were falling behind in the crisis, and it seemed very inconsistent to tell them they had to pay,” Escolar said in the Bloomberg report. Eldiario now has about 200 employees, including local journalists and separate editions for Argentina called EldiarioAR.

Eldiario added about 22,000 paying readers last year and another 6,000 subscribers through August of 2021. Readers spent about 6 euro ($7) a month last year for total sales of 4.5 million euro ($5.15 million) — more than double its revenue in 2019. More than half (53%) of Eldiario’s revenue came from ad sales, said Escolar.

“There are people who read you at all hours, who consider you their newspaper,” he said. “But if you don’t say what they want you to say, they won’t pay.”

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