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interest.co.nz is a free service for all - help us stay that way

Personal Finance / opinion
interest.co.nz is a free service for all - help us stay that way
free

Have you noticed that when you come to interest.co.nz, you haven't been:
- pestered to subscribe to our free business & financial newsletters?
- asked to accept cookies or register (if you don’t wish to)?
- asked to pay to use our financial tools?
- blasted with a pop-up every time you come to our website?
- startled by an auto-play video every time you visit a page?
- greeted by a paywall when you click on any article link?
- told how much to pay if you choose to support us?

Just the facts, ma'am

Call us 'old school' but we believe in journalism that delivers unfiltered fact-based business, financial and economic news all day, every day - no corporate spin, no sales pitch, no arm-twisting.

As a home-grown, privately-owned and 100% Kiwi organisation, our vision is simple: To see all Kiwis equipped with the latest economic information so they can be financially savvy. We do this by:

  • publishing reliable up-to-date interest rate comparisons
  • researching and analysing business, economic and financial trends, data and policies
  • leveraging technology to deliver fresh market intelligence to track how the NZ economy is performing
  • partnering with experts and analysts to provide transparent savings and investment guidance, and
  • equipping you with extensive bespoke tools found nowhere else to manage your finances better.

Use of our website is free

As you know, access to almost all our content is free – there’s no paywall, no limited access, no gated content. There's no requirement to pay, or even register unless you want to.

And registration enables you to comment if you wish, which is also free.

You get not only the news affecting your monetary future, but also access to our very comprehensive charts and calculator tools developed over two decades of research and refinement. These free tools help you make informed and we hope, better decisions about your financial future.

We are popular. We have become the go-to place for financial and economic resources. As over two million Kiwis visit our website every year, we know we're providing a valuable resource where New Zealanders can get information and data they need for their mortgage, savings, investment guidelines, Kiwisaver, etc decisions. That's why we're seeking your help.

How you can help

Advertising income is decreasing due to the changing times, and out of the tens of thousands who visit our website every day, (31,000 unique readers on Wednesday alone), only a tiny number of people support us financially. These Supporters pay $10/month or $100/year (or more) and get:

  • 100% ad-free website browsing
  • An exclusive monthly eBook
  • A digest of the top stories of the past month, and
  • Satisfaction they are supporting a home-grown professional and passionate news team.

Despite our limited resources, it is thanks to financial donations from our supporters that recently we've been able to make small upgrades to our residential auction section, and expand our professional news team.

That enables us to cover more of the personal finance side of things which affect everyday Kiwis, and general business news. We are planning additional specialist tools that will empower investors, savers, and anyone with financial interests.

And if you're an advertiser, contact our publisher david.chaston@interest.co.nz for options to promote your business or service.

Keen? Here’s what to do

Just click here to start your support of $10 a month or $100 a year, and you’ll get the best, ad-free interest.co.nz reading experience and some exclusive items! Or you can also specify the amount and choose a one-time option if you prefer.

Finally, thank you to our loyal readers and your support all these years. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it these 20+ years since our humble beginning.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

11 Comments

Hi David,

You should be proud of what you have built with your team at Interest, it's a great financial website.  You and your staff work hard and deserve to be remunerated accordingly.

The irony is not lost on me, that for a financial publication, you're struggling to get enough income to do what you want and need with your site.  Finance 101 would suggest that if you provide a top service to someone, that someone should pay you for the use of that great service

I would simply suggest to provide your paying supporters more benefits over the free-loaders.  

- For starters restrict the comments section to paying supporters.

- Delay new articles to the freeloaders by a few hours

- I'm sure you could think of a few more 

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3

Well said

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1

Property articles for subscribers only 🥴. 
 

Your points are well made though. Great website to support. The amount I use it, the subscription is worth it just to clear the ads alone. 

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2

Hi all,

Many thanks for the kind words and excellent points raised. David and I will have a chat about it and see what we can use and implement. Much appreciated!

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1

When has the controlling anything been successful??  None of the ideas suggested make any sense.

The best way to grow is marketing and getting advertisers. 

I click on most of the advertising on the website and if I have a need, I will buy too. 

Let's help the website by posting links for stories on other social media platforms, that helps bring in the web traffic.

Be creative not restrictive. Just my two cents. 

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9

NGK, do you work?  If so, if you're an employee, do you not expect to be paid for your work?  If you own your own business, do you provide you products or services for free?  How do you pay your employees?  Why would you then expect Interest to provide their services free to you?  Does that not make you greedy, expecting to read all their articles for free ???

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1

Maybe a small icon next to our usernames could indicate if the member is a paying supporter? Even better could be a number on the icon, indicating years of support.  It'd be there on every post then, a gentle reminder for non-subscribers.

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3

A limitation on free access to articles per user per day could help, just like what Harvard Business Review does.

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0

Boo (downvoted)

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2

Agree, potentially absolutely disastrous suggestions.

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1

Ozzy2 & ZS,

"Boo" and "disastrous suggestions", can you two not come up with some more constructive suggestions to help Interest?

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2