How WordPress News Site Civil Beat Makes Money

Poynter has a detailed article on revenue for Civil Beat, which is a WordPress-based news startup in Hawaii.

The site had initially launched with a paywall but found that it was not successful for them:

Civil Beat went with a paywall and $19.95-a-month subscriptions. After emphasizing dialogue in discussion chains after each story, layering in events and other membership benefits, making the paywall more porous, and dropping the price to $4.99 a month, Civil Beat still found itself with only a few more than 1,000 paying subscribers in 2016.

They dropped their paywall and have a new revenue goal:

“25% small donors, 25% larger local donors, 25% institutional giving and 25% ads and sponsorships.”

Click here for the original whitepaper with all the details.

Here's the Civil Beat WordPress site: https://www.civilbeat.org.