Pricing for publishers and readers

What publishers pay

Each issue has a $240 production fee. It covers turning your final print PDF into an audio edition: detecting the articles on each page, preparing them for your review, and producing professional narration for every article you approve. The fee is paid when you upload the PDF, before processing starts.

Translated audio editions are optional. Each additional language costs $40 per issue and produces a separate narrated edition in that language. You only pay for the languages you choose.

You do not pay to create an issue or its QR code. You can set up the issue and print the QR code before the PDF is ready.

What readers pay

Readers can buy one issue for $1 and keep access to it permanently. They can also subscribe to your publication for $3.99 per month or $34 per year, which gives them access to your audio editions while the subscription is active.

Subscriptions are per publication. A reader subscribing to your paper is subscribing to your paper, not to a bundle of other titles.

Buying a single issue does not require creating an account. Readers pay with a card through Stripe and start listening straight away.

Your production fee is recoverable

Your production fee is recoverable. Reader revenue first goes toward earning back the production cost. Once it has been fully recovered, standard revenue sharing begins.

The recoverable amount is the fee you actually paid. If you used a discount or promotional code, the amount to recover is the discounted amount, not the $240 list price.

Recovery is calculated on net reader revenue, meaning the amount left after payment processing fees. The production fee is a recoverable production investment, not a refundable deposit.

Revenue share

After the production fee for an issue has been recovered, net reader revenue is shared 50/50 between you and Read to You. Payment processing fees are deducted before the split, using the actual fees charged on each payment.

Your revenue page shows purchases, subscriptions, payment fees, the amount recovered so far and your share for each issue.

A worked example

Illustrative example only. A weekly paper pays the $240 production fee for one issue. Over time, 400 readers buy that issue for $1 each, bringing in $400 in gross reader revenue. If payment processing costs roughly $0.34 per $1 transaction, the fees on those 400 purchases total about $136, leaving approximately $264 in net reader revenue.

The first $240 of net revenue goes toward recovering the production fee. The remaining $24 enters the standard 50/50 revenue share: $12 to the publisher and $12 to Read to You.

Actual payment-processing fees vary by transaction, payment method and processor pricing. Actual sales will vary by paper and issue.

Common questions