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 public page it was captured from — the vendor's own wherever the vendor publishes the number, otherwise the named public source — with the date we captured it.
Financial Times has the lower entry price — Financial Times starts at $4.99/mo, The Economist at $6.9/mo. Free tier: Financial Times No, The Economist No. HIPAA: Financial Times —, The Economist —.
As of 2026-09-05 · figures link to their source below
Side by side
Financial Times
$4.99/mo entryThe Economist
$6.9/mo entrySources — Financial Times: ft.com (verified 2026-09-05) · The Economist: apps.apple.com (verified 2026-09-03)
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