The Wall Street Journal plans to charge US$17.99 a month to subscribe to the iPad version of its paper, according to a report by…wait for it…The Wall Street Journal. At the end of an article looking at newspapers and advertisers who are ready for the iPad on launch day, The Journal cited sources “familiar with the matter” to reveal its own pricing plans for the device.
The newspaper charges $29 a month for a paper subscription, but only $1.99 per week to access the site on the iPhone. The WSJ, The New York Times, and other major newspapers have been given early production models of the iPad so that they could test versions of their publications on the device, but this is the first we’ve heard on exactly how much the News Corp. propertly intends to charge.
In the meanwhile, these and other publications are prepping for their iPad launches, and this apparently includes a variety of advertisers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be in the first fiew issues that will be availble once the iPad ships on April 3rd. This, despite the fact that no one yet knows how many devices will sell, let alone how many iPad users will rush to get subscriptions to their favorite newspapers on the device.
Six advertisers, including Coca-Cola and FedEx, have agreed to advertise with The Journal with a four-month ad package priced at $400,000.