• by Ray Schultz , April 30, 2023

Twitter will allow publishers to charge for article clicks, owner Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Saturday.  

“Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click,” Musk wrote. 

He continued, “This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.”

Musk concluded, “Should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public.”

In theory, this will drive revenue to publishers from article links on Twitter, addressing the increasing tension between publishers and social media networks over this issue.

Paywalls are unpopular with readers. A study by Toolkits and National Research group found that 53% of consumers attempt to bypass paywalls on publishers’ websites, and 69% avoid clicking through when they know the site has one. Even 66% who pay for at least one digital subscription attempt to get around paywalls.

Companies have been trying to find a way around the need for readers to purchase full subscriptions to read content. 

Late in 2022, a European startup named Sesamy introduced a pay-per-click service, SmartID, in which the visitor pays to read single articles.

And earlier this year, Zette launched a service to proide readers with behind-the-paywall access to articles from over 100 publications. The service starts at $9.99 per month for 30 article credits. 

Like several other publications, Time announced last week that it was breaking down its paywall to provide “access to all.”