Case Study: The Cook Political Report achieves dramatic subscription and revenue growth with Recurly

The Cook Political Report Relies on Recurly to Expand Beyond the Beltway

The Cook Political Report is an independent, nonpartisan weekly newsletter that analyzes U.S. elections and political trends. As it shifted from print to an online subscription model, the small team faced an inefficient payments process—annual non‑renewing plans, checks, and confusing PayPal flows—that hampered acquisition, retention, and self‑service for a diverse subscriber base that includes congressional offices, PACs, lobbyists, academics, and individual readers.

In June 2018 Cook implemented Recurly—using hosted PCI‑compliant payment pages, its API and features like automated dunning, Account Updater, Revenue Optimization Engine, Subscription Billing Terms, and self‑serve account management. The change was quick to roll out and dramatically improved results: monthly subscriptions increased eight‑fold to 800 by October 2018, monthly revenue doubled or tripled, support requests dropped, and Recurly’s recovery tools helped recoup lost payments.

The Cook Political Report

Ally Flinn

Web Editor