Reader revenue models are under strain worldwide. Audiences are overwhelmed by paywalls, trust in news is shrinking, and publishers like these two Kenyan newspapers are searching for new ways to persuade people to pay.

In Kenya, some newsrooms are trying a different approach. Instead of asking for monthly commitments, they are testing whether readers will pay small amounts for a single story.

Two of the country’s oldest newspapers are trying two different models.

The Daily Nation, the Kenyan daily with the most reach according to the Digital News Report, offers full digital access for 50 shillings a day (roughly $0.40), or 350 shillings for a week ($2.70).

At the Standard, the model goes even further. A reader who wants a single article can pay five shillings ($0.04). A week’s worth of access costs 99 shillings ($0.75).

“The idea is to create products that are pocket-friendly for our audience,” said Patrick Vidija, the Standard’s digital editor. In print, he noted, a reader must pay 60 shillings for the full paper. “But what if I’m only interested in one story? So we came up with a simple offer. If someone only wants that story, they can pay five shillings.”

It is a small and unglamorous bet. But it sits at the center of one of the most consequential questions facing journalism. Can micropayments build a sustainable financial foundation for news? And might Africa, constrained by lower incomes, expensive mobile data, and limited success with Western-style paywalls, be showing the rest of the world something it has yet to figure out?

Based on my conversations with publishers, editors, and media analysts, the answer might be yes, but perhaps not in the ways the news industry might expect.

Kenyan Newspapers Test Out the Logic of the Small Bet

Across the global news industry, subscriptions have become the dominant response to the collapse of print advertising. Those models depend on conditions that are less common across much of Africa, and the data bears that out.

Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, said reliable data on willingness to pay for news in the region remains limited. Surveys tend to capture highly educated audiences that are difficult to compare with the broader population. Even so, he said, the overall pattern is clear. Across much of the continent, willingness to pay for general news remains low. “People expect news to be free,” Newman said.

Read the full article about micropayments for news access in Kenya by Maurice Oniang'o at Nieman Journalism Lab.