Amid the war in the Middle East, inflation is heading to 4% in 2026. Your subscribers’ energy bills are already reflecting that. As the cost of living and publishing rises, should you raise subscription prices too?

In March, the OECD revised its 2026 forecast for inflation across the 20 biggest economies by 1.2 percentage points. A prolonged war in Iran could add another 0.9 points in 2027.

Consumers in the European Union and the United States are growing less confident about their future finances, even if they have not yet cut spending. 

Marketers are already bracing. WARC estimates that, in a pessimist scenario, US$94 billion could be wiped from expected growth in the US$1.4 trillion global advertising market by 2027.

If ad revenues soften, while editorial, production, and distribution costs rise, margins will compress. For many publishers, pricing will again move from optimisation to necessity.

What happened the last time inflation spiked? 

We have a recent stress test.

In 2022, following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, inflation across G-20 economies nearly doubled year-on-year and peaked in the third quarter. 

Churn followed. According to INMA Subscription Benchmarks, median digital subscription churn also rose sharply and peaked one quarter later.

And yet, most publishers held the line on digital pricing. Median revenue per subscription globally stayed broadly flat in 2022. Many avoided increases, wary of adding pressure on  households already stretched since the COVID pandemic.

It was a defensible call. Academic studies consistently show price is a dominant driver of subscription choice, with relatively high elasticity in media categories: The higher the price, the lower demand.

The news industry-specific data suggests something more nuanced.

The risk publishers may be overestimating

Mather’s analysis of pricing experiments during the 2020-2022 inflation period found that while overall churn increased, price change-related churn did not. In fact, acceptance of price increases improved.

Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Mather analysts believe news is not a substitutable product in the same way as entertainment. A reader of a local newspaper in the U.S. does not switch between two equivalents the way a viewer moves between Netflix and Disney+. 

Subscribers rarely “rotate” between titles because in many markets or segments there is no real alternative.

Penetration reinforces this, in my opinion. Around 91% of U.S. households have at least one streaming subscription, but only about 20% adults pay for news, per Parks Associates and Reuters Institute. 

This makes the news subscriber base smaller, and therefore more selective, and typically wealthier, educated, and more engaged in public affairs. For many, news is closer to a staple than a discretionary expense.

Tenure and habit matter too. According to Mather’s 2026 playbook, daily print subscribers are less price sensitive than digital subscribers. Both are less price sensitive than, for example, Sunday-only readers.

Pricing does not operate in isolation

This is where the current cycle differs. 

Pricing decisions today are not happening against a stable backdrop. They coincide with structural disruption in demand for news and in content discovery.

INMA’s 2025 benchmarks show that for some publishers, a value extraction-first strategy — including price increases — collided with weakening funnels. Traffic declined due to slower news cycles and AI disruptions in social and search referrals.

For the slowest-growing quartile, the result was a double hit: falling market shares and flat subscription revenue year-on-year.

In that context, aggressive pricing becomes more dangerous. Not because elasticity suddenly spikes, but because there are fewer new subscribers to offset inevitable churn. 

Pricing cannot compensate for a broken funnel.

When pricing hits its ceiling

Denmark’s national news brand Politiken offers a clear case for a perfect storm when disruptions overlap.

From 2017, the newspaper pursued a deliberate strategy: offset print decline with regular price increases while positioning digital as a premium product. 

Print subscription rates reached some of the highest levels globally — around US$85 per month per a 2018 presentation — with digital priced at roughly US$45, several times higher than mass-market streaming services or any news competitor.

This protected margins and prioritised value over volume. Growth in digital was slower but more profitable.

Then came 2022. The combination of war, energy shock, and the highest inflation in decades hit Danish households hard. Around 85% reported cutting spending. At the same time, publishers faced rising newsprint and logistics costs, as well as declining advertising revenues.

For Politiken, executives later recalled, pricing reached its ceiling. Print churn surged more than expected. Five consecutive years of profits turned into a loss. 

The problem was structural. Digital subscriptions still accounted for only about one-third of the base and could not compensate quickly enough. The company pivoted, investing in brand and used discounted trials to rebuild the funnel.

By 2023, following restructuring and renewed focus on digital products, profitability returned. 

Others were less resilient. Another Danish newspaper, B.T., exited print entirely and became digital-only. Volatile times do not change the economics of news, but they perhaps expose them.

Greg’s Readers First newsletter is a public face of a revenue and media subscriptions initiative by INMA, outlined here. INMA members can subscribe here.

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