Let me tell you a story about an immigrant kid who became obsessed with a business idea that most news publishers had given up on: content micropayments.

In June, Google launched Offerwall — a feature in Google Ad Manager that lets users unlock content by watching video ads, answering surveys, subscribing to newsletters, or paying per article.

More than 1,000 publishers joined last year’s pilot. TechCrunch reported an average revenue uplift of 9%. 

India’s Sakal Media Group saw a 20% boost.

A stubborn entrepreneur

The micropayment part of Offerwall is powered by a Swiss startup Supertab, formerly known as LaterPay.

Its founder and CEO Cosmin Ene has evangelised pay-per-article since 2010 despite minimal traction and much skepticism. Many similar startups struggled: Axate, Blendle, Invisibly, Scroll. 

Supertab’s model lets users put articles or time passes “on a tab” and pay later — after hitting a US$1 or US$5 threshold. That’s a crucial difference from “wallets” that require paying before reading. 

The Google partnership began in 2022 with a surprise LinkedIn message. Supertab pivoted to build a scalable platform for the tech giant.

“I’m stubborn,” Ene told INMA. At 12, his family fled communist Romania. Within three years in West Germany, he’d mastered the language, read hundreds of books, and excelled in school. “If I believe in something, I get there.”

As an adult, Ene became convinced that readers deserve choice — and not a forced subscription: “You cannot win if you go against a user.”

The context: In Q1 2025, median digital subscription penetration was just 1.9% households, or 1.2% of monthly online users, per INMA Benchmarks. 

What about the remaining 98%? “Give them a choice,” Ene begs. 

“Publishers make money regardless of what users choose in Offerwall: higher-priced video ads, richer first-party data, or direct payments for articles or subscriptions.”

Supertab customers saw a three-fold increase in paying readers; 10% of those who had put articles on a tab converted to subscriptions within three to four months.

A long road to vindication

INMA tracked micropayment experiments for over a decade. The verdict? Often underwhelming.

• With rare exceptions, the news publishers reported demand and revenue were smaller than expected and not worth the effort. Micropayments cannibalised more valuable subscription offers. 

• A 2023 Danish study concluded consumers and publishers alike preferred all-you-can-eat subscriptions. 

• In 2025, Oxford’s Reuters Institute found only 5% of U.S. online users (or 7% of non-payers) would consider article, day, or week passes. 

• Compare that to 20% already paying and another 10% (or 13% of non-payers) interested in bundled subscriptions.

Yet Google’s distribution scale and frictionless user experience may finally unlock the potential.  

Google Ad Manager is used by 73% to 81% of publishers worldwide. Offerwall is available in 73 countries. The moment of truth for micropayments is here. 

Future of payments

Cosmin Ene is already looking ahead and leveraging open source agent-to-agent protocols where AI bots could negotiate access and transact on behalf of users and publishers.

Greg’s Readers First newsletter is a public face of a revenue and media subscriptions initiative by INMA, outlined here. INMA members can subscribe here. 

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