How we measure paywall success rates
Unlike other paywall tools, we publish how often removal actually works — per outlet, updated continuously. Here's exactly how those numbers are produced, so you can trust (and cite) them.
Measured from real usage, not lab tests
Every figure comes from anonymous, real attempts by real people using the tool — logged server-side, so ad-blockers don't undercount them. We never contact a publisher to build these numbers. When you paste a link, the outcome of that attempt (which method delivered the article, and whether it succeeded) is recorded against the outlet's domain. Nothing that identifies you is stored with it.
What counts as a success
A success means the tool returned the readable article text in its reader view — extracted from the live page or from an archived copy. A full-page view, a publisher's free preview, a block, a challenge page or an empty shell is counted as a failure, even when we still show it to the reader. We don't grade ourselves on partial credit.
Two signals, blended
Each outlet's rate blends two independent signals: the passive outcome our engine records for every attempt, and the explicit 👍/👎 feedback readers leave. Combining both corrects for edge cases the engine can't self-assess.
Minimum sample size
An outlet's rate is only published once it has at least 5 recorded attempts (12 for the annual report), so a single lucky or unlucky try never sets the number. Low-sample outlets are shown without a percentage until they cross the floor.
Continuously updated
Published rates cover the last 7 days (the last 30 for outlets with fewer than 30 reads a week) and refresh automatically as new attempts come in (cached briefly for speed). A publisher that tightens its wall will see its rate fall in our data within days; one that loosens, or that becomes readable again through archives, will see it rise. The numbers describe the live web, not a snapshot frozen at launch.
Honest about the limits
Hard subscription walls — where the article text is never sent to a logged-out reader — can only be recovered when a public archive of the piece already exists. That's why outlets like the FT, WSJ and Bloomberg show lower rates: the number reflects reality, not marketing. We'd rather publish an unflattering figure than a false one.
See the data
The datasets are free to reuse with attribution (CC-BY 4.0).