In the past two years, The New York Times has doubled the number of subscribers to its crossword app, according to a press release from the Times.
The app now has 400,000 standalone subscribers.
Standalone crossword subscribers pay $6.95 per month for full access. Those with subscriptions to the Times get a 50 percent discount. Daily mini crosswords are available for free.
In February, Sydney Ember reported for the Times that the newspaper added 157,000 digital-only subscriptions at the end of last year, and revenue from subscriptions now brings in 60 percent of total revenue. Ember reported that the times had 2.6 million digital-only subscriptions.
Last month, the Times added parenting as a new standalone product, joining cooking and crosswords. David Beard wrote for Poynter about the success of those products.
They work both as entry products — less than half the monthly cost of the main NYT monthly subscription — or as parts that make the main package seem worth it. MacCallum noted a jump in higher-level subscriptions when Cooking and Crosswords were added to the package. In the first three months of 2018, 40,000 of the 139,000 new digital subscriptions came from the Cooking and Crossword products.
Last year, Poynter's Ren LaForme spoke with me about why tools like Crossword are good reminders for newsrooms that staples such as crossword puzzles shouldn't be overlooked for both engagement and money-making.
