Por Neel Dhanesh
One problem with the recent boom in personal newsletters is the mounting subscription prices. Many of them cost $5 to $10 a month, with a discount for annual subscriptions, and supporting your favorite writers gets expensive quickly: 1 person at The New York Times in 2025 who paid about $600 a year for 11 newsletter subscriptions; another had annual costs of $3,000.
Few people are willing to pay that amount. Some initiatives take another approach, such as the publication , which has 65 contributing members — and increasingly looks like a magazine, with printed editions for premium subscribers — and the Noosphere app, which Hanaa discussed last year. But the real “Holy Grail” of newsletters, the package is the closest experience to a personalized magazine without having to pay the full price for several individual subscriptions.
independent journalist, and author of “” stated in his February, that “Whoever finds a way to bundle subscriptions to independent journalism will be a hero”.
Last week, Kabas followed up on the matter with a announcement. “We finally found a way to offer a paid standalone media package so you don’t have to sign up for so many newsletters separately”said the journalist.
Kabas partnered with Katelyn Burns, author of “”e Kat Tenbarge, autora de “”to offer a 30-day trial of all 3 newsletters, allowing readers to access them all with a single transaction of US$8.50 — half the price of paying for each one individually.
The idea had been developing for some time. A few months earlier, Kabas had received a message from , a former Twitter partnerships manager and co-founder of , a new service that allows independent journalists to create newsletter packages and access each other’s audience bases. “I couldn’t dedicate much time to the idea while I was focused on my work and my business,” said Kabas in an email, but it was certainly something that interested him. The conversation resumed in February, when Burns told him that he had spoken to Jarjour about launching the first paid subscription package. Burns, Kabas said.
Trustfnd solved a crucial technical problem for Kabas, Burns and Tenbarge: their publishing platforms (“The Handbasket” e “Spitfire News” use Beehiiv, and Burns Notice uses Ghost) do not offer integration to create packages, whether cross-platform or on a single platform. This applies to all newsletter services; Substack and Patreon also do not offer packages.
This is partially intentional. “We’ve always talked about doing this, but it gets really complicated and confusing if the entities in the package weren’t part of the same company”said Tyler Denk, CEO of Beehiiv, in an email. He highlighted some possible concerns:
- What if person A results in 10 times more records than person B and person C, will the profit be divided equally between everyone?
- What if person C decides she no longer wants to be part of the package, does she take the subscriptions with her? If so, what price does she pay?
- If a reader subscribes to the package but primarily interacts with just one newsletter, who “owns” that subscriber for the purposes of future direct communication, re-engagement campaigns or list sales?
- What if person C grows drastically during the term of the package and wants to renegotiate the price of their individual service? They will be stuck with a package price that devalues them.
- What if one of the newsletters in the package publishes something controversial that damages the reputation of the others?
Denk stated that there are a number of other complications, but that he finds the concept interesting. He said that “It’s worth reflecting on this a little more, but I believe that many of these people will encounter future problems related to the package”.
Alex Kisielewski, vice president of partnerships and business development at Ghost, said in an email that the subscription packages are “definitely in our plans” and that Ghost has seen an increase in package support requests over the past 6 months. “Independent journalists are looking for ways to collaborate more, whether by sharing an audience, publishing together or pooling resources”continued, but “there’s no denying that it’s complicated”.
He said he shared some of Denk’s concerns about billing and subscriber management, as well as the technical challenges related to access control. “We are keeping an eye on this market and I am happy that the Trustfnd team is developing specific solutions for this”he stated.
Trustfnd works by leveraging the Ghost and Beehiiv APIs (Application Programming Interface). Independent journalists connect their newsletters to their Trustfnd accounts and then connect their Trustfnd accounts to their desired accounts to form a partnership and create a content package. “It’s like a network effect as a service”declared Jarjour via email. “We want them to remain independent entities, but act as one when it comes to expanding their own audience”he completed.
According to Jarjour, grouping allows newsletters to grow faster and at a lower cost, as each one can access a common target audience; readers who subscribe to The Handbasket, for example, will now have access to Burns Notice and Spitfire News. (Current subscribers to each newsletter also receive package discounts, adjusted according to the newsletter they subscribe to — each with a different individual subscription price).
“Transforming followers (which you rent) into members (which you own) is a collective challenge for journalism”says Jarjour. “That’s why I felt the solution also needed to have a collaborative element,” completed. He also said he would support a 1-year trial period.
Ghost and Beehiiv are the only platforms currently offering paid packages — Trustfnd offers 30, 60, or 90 day packages, and the Kabas/Burns/Tenbarge package is only valid for the first month, although Kabas has stated that “traditional brands take action, building networks of independent journalists around their brands”. Integration with Ghost and Beehiiv was easy because they are open, but Jarjour said he and his co-founder, former CEO of an e-commerce platform, are starting conversations with closed platforms (like Substack and Patreon) to integrate them as well.
Trustfnd is currently in beta and is free to journalists, but plans to charge a fee (which is still being determined) rather than taking a percentage of revenue. In the short term, Jarjour said he hopes to expand Trustfnd by creating packages and a service to allow independent entities to act as one when that is useful. According to him, the objective is for traditional brands to take action, building networks of independent journalists around them, “so they can grow, make money and spend it together. Like a new kind of news organization”he completed.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Ghost.
is a staff writer at Nieman Lab. You can reach Neel via email (neel_dhanesha@harvard.edu), (@neeldhanesha.com), or Signal (@neel.58).
