Today is a big day for this team of community news nerds. We finally get to tell you about an exciting new era we’re entering at Indiegraf. This is a culmination of what our team has been building since the first day: how we’re reimagining Indiegraf to make a bigger impact on the independent journalism ecosystem by disrupting the status quo and rewriting industry standards.
🧰 Indiegraf now offers a full set of publishing tools including website, email, reader payment and an ad platform, fully-integrated out of the box.
🤝 We’ve expanded our products to support community media of all sizes, from startups to multi-million dollar news networks.
💸 We’ve lowered our prices for some products and early-stage publishers.
📈 We are creating more flexible ways to access growth services through Indiegraf Experts.
Indiegraf doesn’t produce journalism. So we aim to maximize our community impact at the core of Indiegraf’s mission by giving publishers more resources to produce their work. That means lowering their expenses, increasing their revenue and giving them time back.
But before I get into the how, I want to share the why.
Why we founded Indiegraf
Caitlin Havlak and I founded Indiegraf back in 2020 because we knew how hard it is to be a community news entrepreneur. We’ve always deeply believed in the power of independent journalism to address some of the world’s wickedest problems, from polarization to health inequity. But, damn, running an independent journalism organization is hard! As founder of The Discourse, I was very nearly broken (professionally, financially, spiritually) by the process of starting a local news publisher.
Indiegraf is on a mission to make it possible for every community, no matter their economic status, rural geography or ethnic makeup, to access quality community journalism. While we can’t tackle every barrier to that, many problems can be solved with innovative approaches to technology, services and business models.
What we’ve accomplished so far
We found our way through (The Discourse turned 10 last month woot!) but so many others don’t succeed or even get started. Since then, Indiegraf has helped more than 120 publications across North America find their footing in a turbulent landscape — and thrive.
And the world needs independent news entrepreneurs more than ever. They are democracy heroes. That’s why we founded Indiegraf: to make it easier to start, grow and manage an independent news business.
The newly reimagined Indiegraf
Why does running a news business require spending thousands of dollars a month on building or maintaining a WordPress website? Why do we have to become experts in integrating and troubleshooting a dozen different tech and data tools just to make our systems work for us? Why are we still bogged down in manual tasks like copy-and-pasting ads into our newsletters and sending invoices to advertisers?
The new Indiegraf is our answer to these questions. And we’re just getting started.
Just as Shopify made a whole new form of independent e-commerce small businesses a reality for millions of people around the world, we are building Indiegraf to be the Shopify for community news — a one-stop shop where independent news organizations can get everything they need to run their businesses.
So what does that actually mean?
1) All the tools you need, from one source, for one price. Now when you sign up for Indiegraf, you get a complete package of the publishing tech you need to run a successful content business with multiple revenue streams:
- Indie Website with reader payment tools built in;
- Indie Email for newsletters and audience automations; and
- Indie Ad Manager to maximize programmatic revenue and streamline direct sales.
The best part? Our fully-integrated bundle just works, out of the box. No more buggy integrations. No more broken data systems. No more surprise overage bills from Mailchimp. Plus, you only need to message us when you need support.
2) Great products at lower prices for media of all sizes. We’ve adapted our offering to work better for a wider range of media organizations, ranging from the small, startup newsrooms we’re known for supporting to mature publishing businesses.
- Our Scale tier is a customized package that optimizes workflows for networks of publishers, and we’re so proud to power change makers building networks across the country to scale their journalistic impact.
- Our Grow tier is designed for established, independent newsrooms to bring all their tools under one umbrella for considerably less cost (and pain!) than integrating multiple tech vendors.
- Of course Indiegraf wouldn’t be Indiegraf without serving solo-preneurs and scrappy startups ready to level-up their businesses: our Essentials tier now offers them a full suite of sophisticated publishing tools for even less than we previously charged.
3) More flexible ways to access business expertise and talent. In response to publisher feedback, we are also taking a new approach to providing shared services.
- Indiegraf Experts will soon allow publishers to hire talent to help design and execute projects like advertising campaigns, audience growth strategies, donation campaigns and more, on a recurring or per project basis. Our goal is to make it easy and affordable to get the help you need, when you need it, without taking on the risk and expense of hiring an employee. We are currently offering Indiegraf Experts to a limited number of publishers, and you can sign up here to be first to hear when new spots are available.
Making an impact on the ecosystem
So how, exactly, do these changes contribute to a positive impact on the independent journalism ecosystem?
As I hope is clear by now, we are obsessed with the less sexy aspects of independent news, like automating advertising workflows, building integrations and lowering the cost structure. But the ultimate reason we do this work is because we believe independent news publishers deserve better resources to impact their communities.
I was reminded of this when I had an opportunity to participate in the Knight Media Forum earlier this year. It’s an exciting time for the sector, with big growth in independent local news and non-profit journalism. A lot of new funding is being directed at infrastructure organizations like Indiegraf, through initiatives like Press Forward.
Funding infrastructure like Indiegraf to develop new products that help news businesses become sustainable is a good thing. When it comes to industry-specific technology, the news sector is a laggard. Tech innovation and automation has driven massive change in many industries, increasing productivity, lowering costs and making new business models possible.
Yet many folks at the Knight Media Forum questioned whether funding going to infrastructure would be more effective if it instead directly funded journalism. Their skepticism is right. Funders should hold organizations like ours accountable. They should push us to invest in innovations that enable us to lower our costs, increase the impact of our products on publishers and, ultimately, prove our ROI.
With declining trust in the media and the rise in the spread of disinformation, it’s clear that we can’t repeat the mistake of legacy media: boxing journalists into one way of doing things. We believe that the industry will only benefit from broadening the playing field and providing publishers with more opportunities and better choices. After all, there’s more than one solution to save democracy.
This means we need to compete more directly with what’s currently being offered on the market. Indiegraf’s new technology bundles, our restructured service offerings and new pricing will allow us to do exactly that. By reimagining our products to support not only small and startup publishers but also established independents and large publishing groups, we are building important infrastructure that will contribute to a more collaborative media industry — which will in turn, create better futures for communities and democracy.
Are you a publisher or newsroom ready to expand your impact? Connect with us to learn about our new product bundles and how Indiegraf’s all-in-one solution can help accelerate your growth.
