Facebook Begins Testing Subscriptions For Instant Articles On Android Devices

Facebook has announced that it has begun testing subscriptions support for Instant Articles for its Android app. The new subscription model will allow publishers in the U.S. and Europe to start putting some of its news content behind a paywall.

“Earlier this year, many publishers identified subscriptions as a top priority, so we worked with a diverse group of partners to design, refine, and develop a test suited for a variety of premium news models,” Facebook said in its blog post. “We also heard from publishers that maintaining control over pricing, offers, subscriber relationships, and 100% of the revenue are critical to their businesses, and this test is designed to do that.”

Publishers that are taking part in this test include Bild, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Hearst, La Republica, Le Parisien, Spiegel, The Telegraph, The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Washington Post.

Facebook says that it will support a paywall in Instant Articles for both metered models and freemium models. Metered models will allow users to access 10 news articles for free then publishers can lock all of their content behind the paywall after a user has already reached that limit. Facebook says it will start with a uniform meter of 10 articles and test other variations moving forward. As for the freemium model, the publisher will control which articles are locked behind the paywall and which can be accessed freely by everyone.

When a user is not a subscriber to a publication and encounters an Instant Article behind a paywall, a pop-up option will allow them to subscribe to gain full access to that publisher’s content. The transaction will happen on the publisher’s website and the publisher will keep 100 percent of the revenue.

Facebook says that this process will be similar to how publishers have full control on how subscriptions are handled on their own websites. Publishers have control over setting the price of subscriptions and owning the subscriber’s data. When Users subscribe to a publisher through Instant Articles, their subscription will be recognized across the publisher’s website and apps. For users who already have a subscription from one of the publishers mentioned earlier, they will simply have to authenticate their subscription within Instant Articles in the Facebook app to gain full access to news stories.

“Furthermore, we’ll be testing other units to help publishers drive additional subscriptions before a person might hit the paywall. These units include a Subscribe Call-to-Action Unit (CTA), which will appear in-line in Instant Articles similar to other CTAs like Email Sign-Up or App Install,” Facebook said. “We’ll also test a “Subscribe” button that will replace the “Like” button on the top right corner of an article. We’ll continue to collaborate with publishers to refine these units and build out new ones.”

The test is only being conducted on the Facebook app for Android devices, and may not become available to iOS devices anytime soon. According to Recode, Apple declined to be part of this test because it wants its usual cut (as much as 30 percent) of revenue generated through subscriptions.