Ground News Pricing: Free vs Paid Plans (2026)

Is Ground News free?

Ground News has a free plan for comparing coverage and saving stories, with limits on its personalized feed and analysis tools. Paid plans expand that access. The US website currently lists Premium at $39.99 a year and Vantage at $99.99 a year; the small monthly figures beside them are annual-price equivalents.

Prices and feature details were checked against Ground News’s public pages and US App Store listing on September 6, 2026. The web prices below are in US dollars.

For a broader comparison of apps and their rating methods, see our guide to unbiased news apps. This guide covers Ground’s subscription decision: what stays free, which paid tier includes the tools you want, and how billing works.

Pricing sources: Premium checkout, Vantage checkout and the US App Store listing. These are the displayed standard prices, without a promotional code. The App Store lists several Premium annual products; that list does not establish which offer every account can buy. Confirm the plan, currency and renewal amount on your own purchase screen.

What does the free plan include?

The free plan is enough to browse coverage before deciding whether the paid tools belong in your routine. Ground’s published comparison shows a capped personalized feed and Blindspot access. It also distinguishes basic article comparison from the source ratings and ownership information included with its full subscription.

Sources: Ground’s Free-versus-Vantage table and the paid-feature guide. The official Free table also marks media bias ratings as a paid feature. A visible preview or shared story should not be taken to mean every source rating is available without a subscription.

Start with a story you know well. Compare its headlines, follow the subjects you read regularly, and see whether you reach a limit. A blocked feature you wanted to use is a stronger reason to upgrade than a long list of features you have not tried.

Annual billing versus a monthly subscription

The website’s monthly equivalents are a way to express an annual bill. Ground’s payment guide says website subscriptions are billed yearly. A true monthly plan renews month by month through the app store. Compare the amount charged at checkout and the renewal interval before deciding which price fits your budget.

Ground’s payment-method guide explains the website’s annual billing and app-store payment routes. The current US Apple listing supplies the monthly prices in the first table. Availability and pricing elsewhere can differ, so an iPhone price should not be presented as a guaranteed Android or worldwide offer.

Monthly billing can suit a short research project or an election you are following closely. Annual billing commits you for longer. Compare the total charge for the period you expect to use Ground, including any renewal that falls within it.

A discounted first payment can renew at a higher standard price. Save the terms from your own checkout: a referral offer someone else received may not apply to your account.

Is Ground News Pro still available?

Pro remains listed in Ground’s help center and US App Store, but its former web checkout now displays Vantage. An older article linking to that checkout therefore does not establish that you can buy Pro there. Check the plan name and billing terms on the purchase screen before entering payment details.

Ground’s August 2026 upgrade guide describes Pro as its basic subscription for shaping your feed: following interests and hiding topics or sources. The former Pro checkout URL currently presents a different plan. Those observations can both be true; a tier can remain documented for app subscribers while the website promotes another purchase route.

Existing Pro subscribers should check their account before changing plans. For a new subscription, verify that the available offer includes the feed controls you need. Pro’s name alone tells you nothing about access to Blindspot, ownership data or other analysis tools.

Premium vs Vantage: what are you paying extra for?

Premium includes unlimited Blindspot access and factuality information; Vantage adds ownership data and fuller reading-habit analysis. Premium also expands feed customization. Vantage is most relevant if you want to inspect who owns the outlets you read or use the full My News Bias dashboard to review your news consumption.

The Premium feature list describes its My News Bias access as enhanced, while the Vantage checkout advertises unlimited analysis. That distinction matters: “has My News Bias” is too vague for a comparison. The depth of access differs between the plans.

The difference is clearer across two reading habits. Checking the day’s coverage and exploring stories missed by different political audiences points toward Premium. Reviewing who owns your usual outlets and how your own reading is distributed gives you a reason to consider Vantage.

For Vantage, the extra ownership and reading-history views should be part of the appeal. If you expect to use only headline comparison and the Blindspot feed, those additional views may sit unopened.

Bias ratings and factuality are different measures

Ground’s bias ratings describe a publisher’s political leaning; its factuality scores assess the publisher’s reporting practices. Both are source-level measures. Neither proves that a particular article is correct. The paid analysis can help you decide what to inspect more closely, but you still need to read the reporting and check its evidence.

According to Ground’s methodology, political-bias ratings combine available assessments from AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias Fact Check. Factuality uses Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias Fact Check. Their inputs concern practices such as sourcing, corrections and context. An unrated outlet is not automatically an unreliable one; Ground says outlets without the necessary ratings receive no score.

Two publications can lean in different political directions and still report the same documented event accurately. Their emphasis may differ. Comparing headlines reveals framing; opening the linked reports lets you examine their evidence. The rating adds context, but it cannot do that reading for you.

Does paying remove news-site paywalls?

A Ground News subscription does not remove publishers’ external paywalls. It pays for Ground’s comparison and analysis features. Premium and Vantage include tools that hide paywalled sources from view, which is useful for finding accessible coverage. Filtering a paid article out of a list does not grant access to that article.

Ground spells out this distinction in its paywall troubleshooting guide. If a link opens an outlet’s own subscription screen, buying a more expensive Ground tier is not the solution to that publisher’s access requirement.

You may still want a separate publisher subscription for its original reporting, then use Ground to compare coverage elsewhere. A free report on the same event can help, but it may omit details available only in the article behind the paywall.

Free trial, renewal and cancellation

An individual free trial is temporary paid-feature access, separate from the ongoing Free plan. Ground’s Vantage trial lasts seven days and converts to an annual subscription unless canceled. Before starting, note the end date and the account handling the payment so you can manage the subscription through the correct channel.

The Vantage trial checkout lists $99.99 billed annually after the trial and says it will send a reminder three days before the trial ends. Ground’s Vantage help page says cancellation keeps access through the current billing cycle. Canceling a renewal and receiving a refund are separate questions; consult the policy for your purchase method if you need money returned.

Pick one paid feature to assess during the trial. If it is My News Bias, check whether reviewing your habits changes what you read next. Decide before renewal. Apple and Google purchases must be canceled through the relevant store; deleting the app does not cancel the subscription.

Choose a plan around your reading routine

Choose Free for browsing, Premium for unlimited Blindspot access and factuality, or Vantage for ownership and fuller reading-habit analysis. Start from the task you want to complete. A higher tier is useful when its extra access solves that task; it does not automatically make everyday headline reading better.

If you have decided that Ground’s approach does not fit, our Ground News alternatives guide compares replacement tools by the job they serve. For readers mainly looking for a scheduled overview, the daily news briefing guide covers that separate workflow.

Readless fits one part of that workflow: combining your chosen newsletters and feeds into a scheduled digest, with overlapping stories grouped together. It does not assign political-bias ratings. The Readless walkthrough explains the source-to-digest process; its seven-day trial is not a permanent free plan. That distinction matters if your original reason for searching was to avoid another subscription.

The most common purchase questions concern free access, billing intervals and publisher paywalls. The answers below explain those distinctions. The prices above reflect the date checked; the plan, currency and renewal terms on your own purchase screen are what determine your subscription charge.