Best News Subscriptions · head-to-head
Financial Times vs The Economist
A sourced, side-by-side comparison for news subscriptions. Financial Times has the lower entry price. Every figure links to the vendor's own page and the date we captured it.
At a glance
- Price: Financial Times $4.99/mo vs The Economist $6.9/mo — Financial Times is cheaper to start.
- Free tier: Financial Times No; The Economist No.
- HIPAA: Financial Times —; The Economist —.
Side by side
| Financial Times | The Economist | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $4.99/mo (FT Edit) | $6.9/mo (Podcasts+) |
| Free tier | No | No |
| HIPAA (BAA) | — | — |
| SOC 2 | — | — |
| GDPR | — | — |
| Best for | Global business and finance readers wanting UK/European-centric market perspective | Global affairs and policy readers who want weekly depth over daily breaking news |
Sources — Financial Times: apps.apple.com (verified 2026-06-13). The Economist: apps.apple.com (verified 2026-06-13).
Key features
Financial Times: FT Edit: separate low-cost app with 8 hand-picked articles daily (launched 2022, aimed at younger readers); MyFT: personalized topic-following feed; AI-read articles (audio version of text content); FT News Briefing and other podcasts (free without subscription); Real-time market data, stock prices, and equities screener (free without subscription); ePaper (digital replica of print edition); Lex column: investment analysis commentary (Premium only); Video journalism; Daily crossword (free without subscription); CarPlay support for audio on the go; Article gifting and sharing; How To Spend It lifestyle magazine (free)
The Economist: Weekly print edition available digitally with offline download; Full audio edition of each weekly issue (MP3, available Thursday 9pm London time); Award-winning podcasts: The Intelligence (daily), Babbage (tech), Money Talks (finance); Economist Podcasts+ standalone audio subscription; Espresso app: daily briefing curated by editors (included for subscribers); World in Brief: quick news summary feature; News games: crosswords, history quizzes, current events trivia; Short videos distilling major news topics; Article bookmarking, dark mode, adjustable text size; Global coverage across 200+ countries