An announcement from The Downballot

This note is going out to our paid subscribers, so let me start by thanking each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.

When I began building the site that would become The Downballot two years ago, there was a lot I didn’t know. What platform should we use? Should we put up a paywall? How do you run payroll, anyway? And so many more questions, including plenty that I’m still puzzling out.

Among other things, I had little idea what we should charge for a subscription, and none at all as to whether anyone would actually sign up for one. To my great astonishment, the answer to the latter turned out to be quite a few—in fact, 3,545 of you have done so, at last count. I’m humbled every time I look at the numbers.

And thanks to your belief in a tiny, independent outlet with a relentless focus on elections that most sites overlook—a belief you’ve backed up with your hard-earned dollars—The Downballot is now on the path to long-term success.

But we’re not there yet. Nearly two years on, our revenues are still below the break-even point. Needless to say, that’s not financially sustainable. We’ve been around for more than two decades, and we want to stick around for a long time to come. I know a lot of people depend on our work, and there really isn’t anything else out there like The Downballot.

Still, there are several outfits in this space or adjacent to it, and they all charge more than we do—much more:

• Pluribus News: $146/yr

• Inside Elections: $249/yr

• Cook Political Report: $350/yr

• Punchbowl: $385/yr

• National Journal Hotline: $475/yr

When I first came up with our rates, I largely looked at what other Substackers were doing, rather than peer publications. But few Substacks offer what we do.

For one, they don’t publish as often or as much. We send out our Morning Digest newsletter—which usually runs to thousands of words—five days a week, plus we regularly produce special features solely for paid subscribers like our primary previews.

They seldom host thriving communities for members, like the one you’ll find in our comment section and on our private Discord server.

And none provide resources like our Ultimate Data Guide, which features tons of unique, free-to-use tools like our presidential results by congressional district.

Now, though, I have two incredibly valuable years of experience running this site and a much better understanding of the media landscape. Thanks to that, I’ve learned that I should have consulted the list of publications above instead of a fairly random roster of newsletters that, it turned out, weren’t really comparable to our own.

With that in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that, for The Downballot to achieve sustainability, we have to raise our prices.

I know an announcement like this can never feel like welcome news, but I want to emphasize: Our subscription price will still be much lower than even our cheapest competitors’.

Starting a week from today, we will ask subscribers to pay $75 a year, or $9 a month. If you’re on an annual plan, that’s an increase of $1.25 a month. And if you’re currently subscribing on a monthly basis, you can still save money by switching to an annual subscription, even at our new rates.

To be very clear, you will not be charged our new rates until your subscription renews. If you’d like to see when your next renewal date is, click here.

I’ve been extremely grateful for the support you’ve shown us, and I truly appreciate your understanding. This isn’t a decision I wanted to make, but I know it will help put us on a surer footing so that we can keep bringing you the world-beating elections coverage you’ve come to rely on.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, and I don’t just mean about this change. If you ever want to shoot the breeze about elections, I’d love to hear from you—and replies to this email will go directly to my personal inbox.

I’m looking forward to many, many more years of The Downballot. Thank you so much for making it all possible.

Sincerely,

David