Axios Pro Deal Newsletters Launches at $599 Annually

The smart brevity publisher Axios launched its first paid subscription product Wednesday morning, a series of three newsletters covering investment and acquisition news in the financial tech, health tech and retail industries. Called Axios Pro, the newsletters cost $599 per year individually or $2,499 for All Access, which includes the three existing newsletters—as well as two more that the publisher aims to release this spring, covering media and climate tech. For a limited time, until the media and climate tech newsletters debut, the publisher is offering All Access for a promotional price of $1,799. The newsletters will publish daily during the week, and a subscription also provides the reader access to exclusive Axios Pro events and other pending perks. The debut of Axios Pro marks the first major foray by the publisher into the world of consumer subscriptions, as it has generated its revenue almost exclusively from a mix of advertising and sponsorships until now. The eye-popping price tag, which does not offer a monthly payment option, is an educated bet from the publisher that it can offer professional readers insider financial reporting valuable enough to justify the cost. “The Pro newsletters are going to go deeper,” said Nick Johnston, the publisher of Axios. “For people with expertise in these fields, who need this information to be successful, we identify what they need to know at a granular level. The challenge for us has been to find awesome reporters in those fields who break news and offer insights that will be worth it for people to pay.” Axios Pro is the third new product from the five-year-old publisher in less than two years. It launched its communications software, Axios HQ, in February 2021 and its sprawling local news operation, Axios Local, in September. Digital media companies have pushed to diversify their revenue streams in recent years. Axios shares this goal with its digital media peers, but it has pursued diversification by translating its core offering––the distillation of complex news into bite-sized bits––into distinct operations. ‘100 is the Minimum’—Axios Local Expands to 11 New Cities Ad-supported and in the Axios writing style The 16-person team behind Axios Pro, led by senior editor George Moriarty, aims to convert a percentage of Axios’ 2.4 million email subscribers into paying customers. Its newsletter readership averages an open rate of 40%––according to the publisher––and will serve as a valuable top-of-funnel audience for Axios Pro to upsell. All of the newsletters will be ad-supported. Axios Pro will also follow the signature Axios style across its newsletters, conveying news in short sentences and bullet points. The familiar mode and large readership reduce the risk of launching such a targeted product, said Arvid Tchivzhel, managing director of the digital consulting practice at Mather Economics. “Newsletters are a great source of signals for what people will pay for,” Tchivzhel said. “They have a direct relationship with an engaged audience of over 2 million people and they only need to convert a small percentage of them.” Focus testing and the Axios Pro Rata newsletter The idea for Axios Pro came from the success of Axios Pro Rata, a newsletter from journalist Dan Primack that covers dealmaking across a variety of industries. The free newsletter has accrued more than 200,000 subscribers––and Axios surveyed the readers when designing Axios Pro to determine what people would pay for. Through focus groups and audience testing, Axios found that its Pro Rata readership contains a significant portion of generalist readers, who value information from across various industries, but it also attracts professionals working in specific industries, Primack told Adweek. Axios Pro aims to serve readers for whom Pro Rata is too horizontal. “Pro Rata is comprehensive––it's covering the oceanfront, from little deals to giant deals in every industry in every geography as best I can,” Primack said. “If I was going to delve deep into retail trends every day, most readers would say, ‘This isn't what I want.’ But there is a sliver of readers who do want that and that's who we're trying to serve.” Curation is king Across all of the products Axios has launched, the throughline remains their dedication to distilling news into digestible nuggets, then presenting only the most critical pieces, said Ava Seave, principal and co-founder of Quantum Media. The hefty price tag of Axios Pro will naturally shrink the size of its target audience, but it will appeal to the same sensibilities that have carried the publisher since its inception. The paradox of Axios is that the publisher derives its value from how little text it offers––or asks of––the reader, and Axios Pro is the epitome of that concept: few other publishers could charge so much per word. The New York Times Debuts 18 Subscriber-Only Newsletters The logic has so far translated across Axios’ previous products, but the raised financial stakes of Axios Pro demand a further heightened quality of reporting. “They know the size of the market and who they're targeting, and they have experience in marketing newsletters,” Seave said. “So the question is: will the experience work as a very expensive subscription?” Correction: The article has been updated to reflect that the $1,799 All Access offer is a limited-time promotion. All Access will cost $2,499.

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Axios Pro Deal Newsletters Launch, Starting at $599 Annually

The eye-popping price tag does not offer a monthly payment option

Mark Stenberg

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