The Onion Testing Metered Paywall on Non-U.S. Visitors

Posted on August 5, 2011

Paid Content is reporting that The Onion is testing a metered paywall on its website for non-U.S. visitors. The metered site allows non-U.S. visitors to read five stories for free within a 30-day period. After that The Onion wants to charge readers $2.95 monthly or $29.95 a year. The meter is powered by RR Donnelley.

The model is similar to the metered paywall recently added by The New York Times. The Onion wrote about the New York Times metered plan in an article that called the idea a bold business move, which would switch the online newspaper to "a cash-for-manufactured-goods-based model from the standard everything-online-should-be-free-for-reasons-nobody-can-really-explain-based model."

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