Baltimore Beat rolls out pay-what-you-can ads

The newspaper and nonprofit news site Baltimore Beat is rolling out pay-what-you-can ads, reports NiemanLab.

“We hope this is a way that small businesses can feature themselves in the paper, keeping their services at the front of readers’ minds,” the Beat wrote in an announcement.

According to the NiemanLab post, Baltimore Beat “launched after the city’s alt-weekly closed in 2017 and relaunched as a Black-led outlet in 2022, does not have a paywall, unlike cross-city competitors like The Baltimore Banner and Baltimore Sun. The nonprofit distributes 20,000 free print copies twice a month and relies on donations large and small, as well as advertising and other revenue.

“Sites like Craigslist took a big bite out of the classified ad market two decades ago, and today big tech companies like Google and Facebook tend to dominate local ad budgets. But the Beat believes that with evidence and anecdata that Google Search is getting worse and user dissatisfaction with algorithms on the rise, local small businesses might be ready to try something different. Especially if it doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg.”