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The New York Times recently unveiled their paywall for online content. Visitors to NYTimes.com in the U.S. who read more than 20 articles per month will now be asked to pay.  The new plan offers a monthly subscription of $15 with a smartphone app, $20 with a tablet app, or $35 for complete digital access. Subscribers with a physical subscription will be given full digital access. In addition, readers who access Times articles from sites like Facebook and Twitter won’t face the same paywall. Readers are also given five free visits per day from search engines like Google.

Since the plan rolled out back on March 28th, Experian Hitwise has reported a decrease in traffic to the New York Times website. They monitored site traffic 12 days before and after the paywall went live and according to their data, for most days, traffic to the site decreased between 5 and 15 percent. April 9th was the only day where site traffic increased and Hitwise states that this was most likely due to the interest in the budget discussions in Congress and the potential government shutdown.

The New York Times has kept quiet about site traffic and company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger, stated that it’s too early to report those stats.

In this era, where most people get their news online for free, it is big news to see a company like the Times to shift to a paid model. [via New York Times]