Newsweek is launching extra subscription merchandise and increasing non-advertising income streams because it braces for a future the place AI reply engines exchange conventional search — and probably siphon off the site visitors publishers have lengthy relied on.
Whereas Google’s rollout of AI summaries and zero-click options continues to be in its early days, the writing is on the wall: the previous web optimization playbook is below stress. Publishers are actually reconsidering how they produce content material, handle web optimization and shield their information – all whereas exploring new income streams.
Newsweek generated $90 million in income within the final monetary 12 months, with a 20 p.c revenue margin. Of that, 63 p.c ($57 million) got here from digital promoting (70 p.c of which was programmatic promoting and 30 p.c direct). Naturally, search-driven site visitors is an enormous a part of that monetization mannequin for the writer, which had roughly 43 million month-to-month customers on desktop and cellular in Might 2025, up 8.8 p.c year-over-year, in response to Comscore. Occasions and subscriptions accounted for lower than 1 p.c of income final 12 months.
Newsweek CEO Dev Pragad burdened that Google AI Overviews and AI platforms usually haven’t prompted important site visitors erosion but, however that the writer desires to cut back its reliance on digital promoting, taking the cut up from 63 p.c of its general income to 55 p.c over the following 12 months.
The purpose for the following 12 months is to nonetheless goal for 10-15 p.c development, moderately than final 12 months’s 43 p.c year-over-year income hike, given the AI headwinds and macroeconomic uncertainty, he famous. But it surely desires to get there with a extra diversified income combine – one which he believes will insulate the corporate from the encroachment of AI referral site visitors erosion.
This includes constructing out its verticals technique with extra occasions, subscription experiments and extra editorial rankings – data-driven co-branded lists produced in partnership with analysis companies like Statista, that consider and highlight top-performing organizations, establishments and providers throughout a variety of sectors, together with healthcare and retail. Pragad hasn’t dominated out making use of a extra superior subscriptions technique extra broadly throughout normal information both, however the writer is within the very early levels of testing.
Newsweek already runs digital and print subscriptions for its journal, priced at $4.99 per 30 days, or $49.00 per 12 months. Pragad mentioned these drive a “cheap quantity of income,” however that the corporate doesn’t push or market them exhausting.
Direct and programmatic promoting will stay priorities, with the writer having not too long ago acquired Adprime, a healthcare-focused promoting platform, particularly to focus on pharmaceutical and healthcare manufacturers, to enrich its present healthcare vertical.
Like many publishers, focus has been on driving extra direct and PMP buys, vs. open-web programmatic, with these accounting for round 40% of complete digital promoting this 12 months, per Pragad. “This 12 months, our focus is to essentially stabilize the expansion we skilled final 12 months, after which construct on high of it. So Newsweek alone could be [a] $100 million enterprise [with the 10 percent predicted growth] and Adprime on high of it, that might take us considerably north of that,” mentioned Pagrad.
Getting ready for ‘zero-click’ search
Most publishers are preoccupied with planning for a “zero-click” future, and Newsweek, and its robust search-driven site visitors, isn’t any exception. With programmatic advert income so reliant on web page views, lots of which come through Google search, Newsweek can also be urgent to cut back its reliance on open-web programmatic promoting and shore up extra direct advert offers.
“What’s driving the diversification is partly how AI will impression or have an effect on the best way customers interact with data,” Pragad mentioned. “So an enormous a part of our diversification [strategy] is income streams that might probably be disrupted by AI after which making an attempt to take a position and develop income streams that gained’t be disrupted by how folks interact and eat data by way of AI.”
Many publishers — together with the Washington Publish and even The New York Occasions — have now signed AI licensing offers to make sure they’re compensated for AI engines scraping their content material, however Newsweek hasn’t been met with phrases which have made that price its whereas, but.
The writer has turned down what it deemed low-ball presents within the “low seven figures,” mentioned Pragad, although he didn’t say from which corporations. “For the sum of money that they had been keen to pay for all our historic content material, and on a yearly foundation… and naturally, a deal would imply giving them normal launch to every little thing…the cash that was on the desk simply didn’t make sense for us to do a deal. That [seven-figure deal] would have had no materials impression in any respect,” he added.
Nonetheless, Pragad is extra optimistic concerning the potential for future syndication offers with AI corporations being a extra profitable income mannequin for publishers like Newsweek. The writer makes use of TollBit to trace how typically its content material is scraped, which is fairly typically. Bot site visitors directed to the TollBit bot paywall elevated by 732 p.c between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the primary quarter of 2025, in response to TollBit. When an AI bot wants entry to articles on Newsweek, it should pay a per-use charge as set by the writer. Up to now, publishers — Newsweek included — are tight-lipped on what they earn from these setups.
“My hope is there can be a sustained business effort to deliver them [LLMs] to the desk and negotiate a good deal. And that there can be some type of a typical by way of which publishers additionally earn a living as a result of we’re those who’re producing the content material,” added Pragad.
Two media consumers, who requested anonymity so they may communicate candidly, mentioned that Newsweek hasn’t fairly sustained the clout it as soon as had because the print big of its heyday, however that continued funding in its investigative journalism can be a vital a part of its future differentiation, as publishers come below much more stress to be seen within the new period of AI-generated summaries.
“It’s [Newsweek] a reputation model, little question about it, however it’s not but obvious whether or not the remainder of it lives as much as what the identify as soon as was,” mentioned one senior company govt at a holding group company.
Subscriptions will take a bigger minimize of income
Subscriptions will take a bigger slice of Newsweek’s strategic income pie. The writer is upgrading its subscription software program by way of the summer season with plans to start experimenting with pricing fashions for subscriptions for each consumer-facing and B2B vertical-focused subscriptions this fall, per Pragad. It would then check and study over a set interval to know what the suitable pricing fashions can be, and what sort of editorial services folks can be keen to pay for. This can be examined within the fall within the U.S.
It would begin with healthcare vertical, placing its hottest healthcare newsletters for instance, behind a paywall. The plan is to rent extra healthcare editors and journalists earlier than the remainder of the 12 months, although he didn’t reveal headcount numbers. Newsweek has 250 editorial employees in complete, in response to the writer.
Subscriptions income can be modest at first, unlikely to high 10% in income by the tip of subsequent 12 months, in response to Pragad, and but the expectation is for that to “compound over time,” he added.
