Magazine Paywall Revenue Calculator
Apple News+, the Apple In-App fee and Google Play take 15–30% of every magazine subscription you sell through their stores. Plug in your subscriber base, ARPU and store share to see how much revenue an owned paywall would recover.
Built for: digital magazines, news publications and B2C newsletters with an active paywall. If you sell ebooks or audiobooks instead, use our Bookshop Storefront Calculator.
Magazine paywall calculator
Edit any input to update the results live.
Want the full waterfall with your real numbers?
Book a 30-minute call and we will model store fees, churn, currency mix and renewal economics for your title.
How we get from store fees to owned revenue
Apple News+ takes 50% of subscription revenue, Apple In-App and Google Play take 30% for the first year and 15% afterward, and most magazines route at least one-third of their paying subscribers through those channels. With an owned paywall on Publica.la you only pay payment-processing fees (~3% via Stripe) and keep the subscriber data, the billing relationship and the upsell flow.
This calculator returns the directional gain in seconds. Want a precise model that accounts for store-driven conversion lift, currency mix, dunning recovery and an annual vs monthly plan split? Book a 30-minute call and we will run it with your real numbers.
Magazine paywall platforms compared
How Publica.la stacks up against the most common alternatives magazines and newspapers consider for their paywall.
| Platform | You keep (effective) | Monthly cost | Time to launch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publica.la Recommended | Up to 85% | From $0/mo | Hours | All-in-one: ecommerce, reader, native apps, DRM, integrations, support. 85% retention available on enterprise plans. |
| Apple News+ | 50% | $0 | Weeks | Apple keeps 50% of subscription revenue. No subscriber data, no email, no upsell control. |
| Substack | ~87% | $0 | Hours | 10% Substack fee + ~3% Stripe. Newsletter-first, weak paywall on web, no native apps. |
| Beehiiv | ~92% | $0–$99+ | Hours | Newsletter platform with paid subs. Good growth tools, limited reader/app experience. |
| Memberful | ~88% | $25–$100+ | Days | 4.9% fee + Stripe. Plugs into your site, but you bring the reader and app yourself. |
| Outline / Pico | ~85% | $200–$1,000+ | Weeks | Dedicated paywall + analytics for newsrooms. Solid web paywall, no native reading apps. |
Effective take-rate is what your publishing house keeps after platform fees, payment processing, channel share, and typical platform-related fixed costs. Figures are industry estimates; your numbers may vary.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Apple News+ keep from a magazine subscription?
Apple News+ takes 50% of the subscriber revenue when a reader signs up inside Apple News. That share is the most aggressive in the paywall ecosystem, which is why many publishers route Apple News exclusively for top-of-funnel reach and rely on an owned paywall for renewals.
What is the Apple In-App / Google Play subscription fee?
Apple In-App and Google Play take 30% of the first-year subscription revenue and 15% afterward. With Apple's Small Business Program the rate is 15% from day one for publishers under $1M in annual App Store revenue. Either way, a renewal cohort sitting on store rails pays a recurring 15% tax compared to a Stripe-based owned paywall.
Why does the calculator use 3% as the "own paywall" fee?
It is the effective payment-processing rate when you run the paywall on a modern platform with Stripe or a similar processor — typically 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Publica.la builds the paywall on top of that, so the only true marginal cost on each subscription is the processor fee.
Should I really pull subscribers off Apple News?
Not necessarily. The smart play is to keep Apple News as an acquisition channel (because of the reach) and migrate renewals to your owned paywall. That is exactly the move publishers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times made years ago — and it is what this calculator quantifies.
How is the payback period calculated?
If you enter a monthly paywall platform cost (e.g. $499/month for an enterprise plan), we divide it by the monthly recovered revenue to get the number of months before the platform pays for itself. Magazines with $5–$15 ARPU and a few thousand subscribers usually see single-digit-month payback.
What ICPs does this tool support?
Digital magazines, news publications and B2C newsletters with an active paywall. If you sell ebooks or audiobooks through marketplaces like Amazon, Bookshop.org or Apple Books, use the Bookshop Storefront Calculator instead — the channel economics are different.
Keep exploring
Tools, solutions and case studies for digital magazines and newspapers.
Bookshop Storefront Calculator
A version of this tool for bookshops moving sales away from Bookshop.org and Amazon affiliate.
Publisher Revenue Calculator
For publishing houses with a catalog of books across D2C, retailers and Amazon.
Solutions for magazines & newspapers
How Publica.la powers digital subscriptions, paywalls and native reader apps.
Forbes Colombia case study
How Forbes Colombia rebuilt their subscription business on Publica.la.
Publica.la vs alternatives
In-depth comparisons against Substack, Memberful and custom builds.
All case studies
Publishers and magazines that built D2C on Publica.la.