Pricing
PeopleOnly has three genuinely different ways money moves through the platform. Each works differently, so each is described on its own terms below, not squeezed into one price list.
Reader subscriptions to a journalist
Every Verified Journalist on PeopleOnly can offer their own paid subscription tiers — up to three per journalist. The journalist sets the name, description, and price of each tier themselves. PeopleOnly does not impose a minimum or maximum price, and does not set a standard tier structure — pricing is entirely up to the individual journalist, the same way it would be on any creator platform where creators price their own work.
Whatever price a journalist sets for a tier is exactly what you'll pay at checkout once payments are live — there is no markup added on top of the journalist's own price. Subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until cancelled; you can cancel any time from your subscription settings, with no penalty, effective at the end of your current billing period.
To see what a specific journalist charges, visit their profile — pricing is only meaningful in the context of the individual creator, not as a platform-wide list.
Institution subscriptions
Verified Institutions — municipalities, government departments, NGOs, regulators, schools, police stations, and other public bodies — subscribe to post official announcements. Unlike journalist subscriptions, institution pricing is fixed and the same for every institution:
| Tier | Price | Active announcements | Target areas | Urgent priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | R500 / month | 5 | 1 | Not included |
| Standard | R1 500 / month | 20 | 5 | Not included |
| Premium | R3 500 / month | Unlimited | Unlimited | Included |
All prices in South African Rand (ZAR), billed monthly. Urgent priority placement (Premium only) applies to safety alerts, missing person notices, school closures, and emergency notices — these are shown at the top of the Near Me feed for readers in the relevant area. All tiers can edit and delete their own announcements at any time.
Subscriptions renew automatically each month until cancelled; cancel any time, with no refund for the unused portion of a billing period already paid. See our Refund Policy for full detail.
Advertising
Advertising on PeopleOnly is not a price list — there is no fixed package to buy. Instead, an advertiser builds a self-serve Platform Campaign and sets their own total budget and cost per impression; PeopleOnly places the campaign automatically across every piece of content matching the advertiser's own chosen targeting (areas, content beats, content types, and content-sensitivity exclusions) — never sold to or negotiated with an individual creator.
There is no fixed minimum budget beyond a positive amount, and no fixed cost per impression — both are set by the advertiser when building the campaign. Once payments are live, whatever total budget is set will be charged in full, upfront, before PeopleOnly reviews the campaign — the campaign will not be visible to review and will not run until that payment is confirmed. If a campaign is rejected at review, the full amount will be automatically refunded; no action will be required from the advertiser. As an approved campaign actually delivers impressions, the already-paid budget is debited accordingly; there is no further charge beyond the amount paid upfront, and unspent budget is not billed.
PeopleOnly separately compensates independent Verified Journalists for their published work, based on how many people read it — never on which advertiser's ad happened to run near a particular article. That compensation is an ordinary cost of running PeopleOnly's advertising business, paid out through PeopleOnly's own payout process; it is not deducted from, or shown as part of, any advertiser's payment.
See advertising on PeopleOnly for how the platform ad network works, and our Refund Policy for the full billing and refund mechanics.