• by Sara Guaglione , May 14, 2019

Quartz has built a metered paywall, limiting readers' access to a few articles before they are asked to pay $100 a year (or $15 a month) for unlimited access to its content.

The number of free Quartz articles a user can read depends on an algorithm that calculates the likelihood of subscriber conversion. The Wall Street Journal and New York Media have similar paywall strategies.

Quartz has built a metered paywall, limiting readers' access to a few articles before they are asked to pay $100 a year (or $15 a month) for unlimited access to its content.

The number of free Quartz articles a user can read depends on an algorithm that calculates the likelihood of subscriber conversion. The Wall Street Journal and New York Media have similar paywall strategies.

Quartz, the business site founded by Atlantic Media in 2012, was sold to Japanese business media company Uzabase last July for $86 million.

Revenue dipped from $30 million in 2016 to $27.6 million in 2017, according to Nieman Lab, which first reported the news of the paywall. Revenue for 2018 rose to $34.8 million, according to Quartz.

Quartz has a newsroom of over 100, with a web audience of about 7.3 million, a 35% decrease year-over-year.

Writes Quartz publisher and CEO, Jay Lauf, in a note to readers: “Today, we are asking those who value this mission to help us continue to invest in what you’ve come to love about Quartz."

A membership program and redesigned app were first announced last November. It was marketed as a offering to give paying users access to more premium content, guides, weekly conference calls with reporters and invitations to live events.

Quartz email newsletters and apps remain free.

Kerel Cooper, senior vice president of marketing at digital marketing company LiveIntent, told Publishers Daily that Quartz’s email newsletters will be its “superpower” as it pursues this subscription model.

“Using the insights that a robust email system provides, Quartz will be able to determine the propensity of each potential subscriber to purchase a subscription (who opens, who reads on other devices, etc.)," Cooper noted.

"Driving subscriptions through dynamic paywalls are a priority for nearly all the publications we talk to," he added. "The email address’ significance for publishers isn’t just a way of sending email: It’s the key to marketing and identity in this mobile world."

Quartz has two daily email newsletters: Quartz Daily Brief and Quartz Obsession. It does not publicly disclose subscribers numbers.

Email newsletters are an important tool to driving subscriptions campaigns.