This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
In the first installment of Digiday’s 2024 Subscription Index, we established that this year has been a volatile one for publishers of all types, thanks to everything from layoffs to Google’s change of heart in its plans for the future of third-party cookies.
Against this backdrop, the 2024 Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies across several different digital touch points to identify some common approaches and key tactics. This third installment of the research series looks at an editorially-selected group of the top lifestyle-focused publications in the U.S.
For a more detailed breakdown of the volatility publishers have faced this year, see the first installment of our Index that assessed news publishers’ subscription strategies, and check out our second installment that examined professional-focused publications’ subscription strategies.
The Digiday Subscription Index collects data from a list of publishers across a set of dimensions that describe their approaches to subscriptions. The Index then uses three main dimensions to ascertain a publisher’s offering and subscription priorities. Dimension scores are used for categorization purposes and do not reflect positive or negative performance, but instead indicate strategies. The dimensions include the following:
- The Digital Threshold Experience examines the layers and sophistication of a publication’s subscription setup and access. Subdimensions include: paywalls/barriers, non-member accessibility, onboarding and customer support.
- Member Benefits measures a publication’s benefits and determines the value offered by the publication after the reader subscribes. Subdimensions include: member exclusives, add-ons/gifts and other perks.
- Pricing and Plans gives a picture of a publication’s pricing structure and plan complexity. Subdimensions include: pricing, plan complexity and payment options.
- The Index is grouped into cohorts. This report focuses specifically on 10 companies from our last cohort: lifestyle publishers.
Lifestyle publishers as a whole did not make major shifts within the member benefits or digital threshold dimensions of Digiday’s Index this year. Rather, the group’s main area of change occurred in the pricing and plans dimension. While the cohort’s average annual subscription price change was only 1%, when broken down at the individual publication level, the lifestyle publisher group actually had bigger pricing swings in both directions, which canceled each other out when averaging them. This was a major trend in the lifestyle group — individual publications made strategy changes that differed from the larger cohort trends. Lifestyle publishers also had more drastic individual publication price changes when compared to the professional and news cohorts’ publications.
With the exception of Cosmopolitan, publications within the lifestyle group of Digiday’s Index either increased or decreased their annual subscription pricing dramatically. Compared to the news cohorts’ publications, which had the second-widest range of annual subscription price changes at +51% for Business Insider and -70% for The Guardian, the lifestyle cohort swung even wider with the high and low for the group coming in at +79% for National Geographic and -81% for Taste of Home. Along with overall subscription price changes, many of the lifestyle publications reduced or eliminated first-time subscriber promotional pricing. Publications that eliminated first-time subscriber promotional pricing were Time, Sports Illustrated, US Weekly, Taste of Home and Outside, many of which also reduced their overall subscription pricing.
The lifestyle group’s pricing strategies, especially regarding the elimination of discounts for first-time subscribers, differed quite a bit from the news and professional groups’ strategies, which were more similar to each other. For comparison, the news cohort increased both annual subscription base pricing and first-time subscriber discounts, with the dual goals of reducing sticker shock for first-time subscribers and increasing publications’ revenue by renewing subscribers at higher prices a year down the road. The professional cohort had fewer annual subscription price increases but, similar to the news cohort, increased discounts for first-time subscribers. The lifestyle group, on the other hand, offered new subscribers lower annual subscription prices, a strategy likely aimed at increasing overall subscription volume.
Unlike the news and professional cohorts, the lifestyle group in Digiday’s Index this year mainly focused on decreasing annual subscription prices and forgoing promotional discounts for first-time subscribers. The strategy behind this may be to drive up the volume of subscriptions, and thus revenue, by offering lower annual prices to attract new subscribers. Another possibility is that lifestyle publishers are looking to attract more subscribers to boost site traffic and, therefore, increase ad revenue. It could also be that the publications in the lifestyle cohort are aiming to retain current subscribers by keeping prices low and relying on automatic subscription renewals to keep revenue stable.
Time Magazine shifted its subscription strategy most significantly within the lifestyle cohort of Digiday’s Index this year. In June 2023, Time removed its website paywall, making the website and its content free. While Time still offers an annual digital subscription for $20, the subscription mainly features discounts for aspects of the magazine outside its regular content, such as special issues and the Time Cover Store. Time also dropped its promotional discount for first-time subscribers under its new plan.
Overall, Time’s new digital subscription model is most similar to the donation or philanthropic model used by some publications in the news group of Digiday’s Index, such as USA Today. For those news publications, this is typically marketed as recurring donations or monetary support for independent journalism and sometimes includes other benefits outside of article access, such as a free physical gift with purchase or ad-free reading.
For Time, this change to its subscription model has shifted the publication’s emphasis away from digital subscription revenue and toward growing other revenue streams, such as the company’s events business.
In a July 2023 Digiday article, Time’s executive editor and vp of events Dan Macsai described the upcoming evolution of Time’s events business. “This year, we want to double down on what has worked for us in the past,” Mascai said. “And that is building events that sort of sit on top of our existing editorial franchises … but take it to a new level by finding like-minded brands and partners who share our mission of creating impact.”
By the end of 2023, Macsai was promoted to Time’s C-suite after the publication experienced a 70% year-over-year increase in 2023 U.S. events revenue and a 14% increase in international events revenue, according to Time CEO Jessica Sibley.
Seemingly, Time magazine’s new digital strategy includes doubling down on its events business by offering free, or low-cost, editorial content to help establish an audience base for its events — a strategy similar to and more often seen in the publications included in the Index’s news cohort than the publications in the professional cohort.
The Atlantic is another publication within the lifestyle cohort of Digiday’s Index that made a significant change to its strategy. Unlike Time, however, The Atlantic seems to be focusing less on its website and more on its physical publication instead.
In October 2024, The Atlantic announced that it will return to publishing 12 magazine covers in 2025, after a strong year for print subscriptions. Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, in an email to The Atlantic’s staff, wrote, “The decision to restore our print publication frequency to pre-internet levels was not made lightly, but it also seemed logical, given the strength and reach of our magazine, and the wide acclaim it receives. We believe that our readers, subscribers, and journalists will benefit from a return to monthly publication, and we believe that this move will benefit all of our platforms.”
While Time and The Atlantic have shifted their strategies away from digital subscriptions this year, National Geographic and Vogue have doubled down on digital subscriptions.
National Geographic increased its annual subscription price more than any other publication in the lifestyle group in Digiday’s Index this year, raising its price by 79% to $34 annually — a notable shift from last year when National Geographic had one of the lowest-priced base subscriptions among publications in Digiday’s Index at $19. It’s worth noting, though, that, even with the increase, National Geographic is still within the average pricing of the other lifestyle publishers included in our Index, and comes in at about the same price as Vogue, whose annual subscriptions cost $34.99. National Geographic also added a first-time subscriber discount of 29% off the annual base rate this year.
Similar pricing strategies to National Geographic’s were also seen in the Index’s news cohort. News publications’ price increases were generally accompanied by deeper discounts for first-time subscribers. As mentioned earlier, the news publications may be hoping to attract new subscribers with initial low costs and then auto-renew them at a higher price.
Similar to National Geographic, Vogue revised its digital subscription revenue strategy this year by increasing its annual subscription price and offering a deeper discount for first-time subscribers. The publication increased its annual base price by 40% and also increased its discount for first-time subscribers by 14%.
When publications increase their annual digital subscription prices, they often add new member benefits, but Vogue didn’t add any of the member benefits Digiday measures in this Index. Instead, Vogue introduced a new subscription bundling option. Vogue’s “All-Access” bundle gives subscribers access to other Condé Nast titles including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, Epicurious and Wired — an option not available in 2023. (It’s important to note that this subscription option should not be confused with and does not include Vogue’s higher-priced global membership subscription program Vogue Club, which is offered on a separate sign-up page.)
This multi-publication bundling subscription strategy is not unique to Vogue, however. Fellow lifestyle publication Outside magazine also uses this strategy. Outside’s subscription bundle includes other activity-based publications, such as Trailforks Pro and Yoga Journal. Within the news cohort of Digiday’s Index, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both incorporate similar bundling strategies that offer access to several publications owned by their respective parent companies.
This publication bundling strategy is an interesting digital offering in that it allows a publication to increase its subscription pricing while also adding value for the subscriber by offering access to multiple titles. As a result, publishers can bring in more digital subscription revenue without alienating subscribers.
Unlike Vogue and National Geographic, Sports Illustrated centered its digital strategy shifts this year on member benefits. In last year’s Index, Sports Illustrated focused heavily on offering numerous member benefits to support its subscription product. In particular, Sports Illustrated provided exclusive sports performance data for fantasy sports leagues and betting.
This year, the publication has stepped away from much of that. The subscription page no longer lists a database as a member benefit, and Sports Illustrated Betting has been removed from SI.com and now has a separate URL.
Although Sports Illustrated sunsetted some of its member benefits, the publication has seemingly balanced those changes by decreasing its annual subscription base price by 67%. Sports Illustrated’s current digital strategy seemingly relies on making its subscription price appealing to potential subscribers through pricing, despite offering fewer member benefits.
It’s possible that Sports Illustrated’s member benefits and subscription price shifts are due in part to Minute Media obtaining the publishing rights to Sports Illustrated in March and staff layoffs that took place in January.
Overall, the lifestyle publications included in Digiday’s Index largely did not add new member benefits this year to entice subscribers. However, lifestyle publications may have less of a need than other types of publishers to offer additional member perks in order to retain subscribers because of the niche topics they cover. A reader interested in outdoor sports, for example, is likely to remain a loyal subscriber of Outside magazine because there aren’t many other publications in the same genre competing for their subscription dollars. This is a big difference from the news cohort of Digiday’s Index in particular, which is much more of a crowded space.
