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.
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 2026-06-13 · figures link to their source below
Side by side
Financial Times
$4.99/mo entryThe Economist
$6.9/mo entrySources — 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