The Guardian returned to revenue growth in the year to March 2025 as it increased turnover by 6.7% year on year to £275m, according to unaudited figures seen by Press Gazette.
Staff have been told that cash losses for the year to 31 March 2025 fell to less than £25m (compared with £37m in the previous financial year).
Digital reader revenue (from donations, membership fees and subscriptions) grew by 20% to “well over” £100m, staff were told. This compares with £88.2m in the previous financial year.
The Guardian now claims to have 1.3 million recurring paying digital supporters.
The title also made cost savings in the last financial year of 4-5%, including a number of editorial redundancies.
These figures do not include the impact of selling The Observer, which changed hands on 22 April 2025 and generated annual revenue of around £16m. The Observer sale also incurred significant costs, including more than 20 redundancy payouts.
The email to Guardian staff notes: “Our financial objective is to break even on a cash basis so that revenues cover operating costs outside of strategic investments.
“We have made significant progress in achieving this; our operating cash outflow has decreased from £37m in 23/24 to less than £25m in 24/25. We ended the year with record revenues of approximately £275m.
“Reflecting our strategy to become more digital, digital revenues – from readers, advertisers, and other sources – now make up over 70% of total revenues. This is an impressive figure which follows from the transformation of our business over the last decade.
“Revenue growth was largely driven by digital reader revenues which increased by over 20%, to well above our target of £100m.
“This is a testament to the quality of our journalism, our products, and much hard work by the reader revenue team and others across the business. During the year, the number of digital recurring supporters increased by over 150,000 to 1.3m, with a significantly higher average revenue per supporter. This is a hugely impressive achievement.
“Reflecting our strategy to become more global, revenues from outside the UK increased significantly to over £100m. More specifically, 24/25 was a year of notable growth in the US, where revenue increased by more than 20% to exceed £50m. This reflects the quality of our global journalism, and a return on earlier investments in the US.
“We have also seen increased growth in our advertising business, after a couple of challenging years, thanks to a strong performance from our teams globally in a very competitive market. The focus on direct client relationships, both big and small, is paying off.
“The UK team surpassed £40m in revenue this year. The new leadership team in the US has delivered significant uplift in programmatic revenue and in Australia the team has won a number of deals, including sponsorship of the Feast app.”
The title has seen a boost in US reader revenue since the election of Donald Trump as US president.
On the eve of the election The Guardian set out its opposition to Donald Trump (in contrast with the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times which chose to stay neutral).
Guardian US editor Betsy Read said in a letter to email subscribers: “Fearless journalism and an informed public are bedrocks of our democracy, and it is an abdication of our duty as journalists to sit out this election out of self-interest. A Guardian editorial strongly endorsed Kamala Harris for president earlier this week – and we are unafraid of any potential consequences.”
Meanwhile, The Telegraph reports that a group of Guardian reporters have complained to management that their stories are only appearing briefly on the newly redesigned homepage.
The note reportedly said: “…aside from the handful of UK news stories which are given a prominent front page slot, though often for a brief period of time, the rest of our stories are simply getting lost.”
A Guardian spokesperson told the title: “The recent redesign has in fact increased the amount of news shown on the homepage and it has been well received by readers, with early data demonstrating they are spending significantly longer on the homepage, with a broader range of articles being read.
“We continue to be committed to in-depth coverage of the UK – it remains our biggest edition and we now have more regional reporters across the UK than ever before.”
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