Why the cost of The Stray Ferret won’t be going up this year

This article is written by the owner and founder of The Stray Ferret 

This week the UK Press Gazette, which covers all aspects of journalism in this country, has a headline :

“Newsflation: UK newspaper cover prices up 10.2% since January 2025”

The article went on to report that in the past decade, since 2016, national newspaper prices have gone up by an average of 178%.

I subscribe to national newspapers online and read them avidly every day. But I am a bit out of touch with hard copy newspaper prices and read the article with interest.

UK inflation currently stands at 3.4% - the price of many hard copy national newspapers then, has risen well above inflation. No wonder newspaper circulation is dropping so rapidly. 

And, just as I write this, the BBC has announced the TV licence fee is to rise by £5.50 a year to £180 from April in line with inflation. 

My personal digital newspaper subscriptions really add up. My Times subscription costs me £25.99 a month - my Telegraph subscription is even higher at £29.99. I also give a financial contribution to the Guardian of £120.00 a year.

As you might expect, as a journalist and owner of the Stray Ferret, I have no issue paying for these quality national and international news publications and for all the BBC offers me. Collectively they keep me very informed and offer a good range of political perspectives. But it’s not cheap.

What price then for local news? I have the responsibility of making the Stray Ferret viable as a business and paying fair salaries to my hard-working team.

Some local news publications charge more than we do. The Mill in Manchester, for example, stands at £8.95 a month. The Courier in Scotland charges £7.99 a month.

The price of the Stray Ferret is £4.99 a month or £49.99 for an annual subscription -that’s around 13p a day. It has been this price since we put the paywall up in July 2024.

We will not be raising the cost of a Stray Ferret subscription this year.

You will not suddenly find when your subscription renews it has gone up in price.

We have to charge otherwise the Stray Ferret wouldn’t exist. But we know that for many every penny counts and we want as many people as possible to be able to afford to read us.

We pride ourselves on producing more local news and quality journalism than any other local publication. I believe we offer real value for money.

We have no adverts in stories, no flashy, distracting pop-ups with ads on them that really annoy me. You pay for well written, sourced, accurate local news.

I promise I will keep the price at its current level for as long as I possibly can.

Please subscribe and get in-the-know. You will never have felt so informed.

You will also be supporting our ability to grow and do an even better job.

Thank you