Is Perplexity AI’s Revenue Share Plan Fair? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

AI-powered answer engine Perplexity AI announced a revenue-sharing plan with publishers when their content is referenced, but there are few details on how smaller publishers will benefit. Some in the digital marketing community expressed skepticism that only the biggest and most powerful publishers will be paid.

Perplexity AI Revenue Share

Perplexity recently announced the establishment of a new enterprise called Perplexity Publishers Program that promises revenue share. Perplexity swung the doors open wide for six big brand publishers who will receive cash payments in advance representing double digit revenue percentage shares. But there were literally no details about what ordinary publishers who lack the clout to get invited will earn or how to even join.

Short on details but long on promises, according to Perplexity:

“Revenue sharing: In the coming months, we’ll introduce advertising through our related questions feature. Brands can pay to ask specific related follow-up questions in our answer engine interface and on Pages. When Perplexity earns revenue from an interaction where a publisher’s content is referenced, that publisher will also earn a share.

We’re also excited to work with ScalePost.ai, a platform that streamlines collaborations between content publishers and AI companies and provides AI analytics for publishers. Our collaboration with them will enable our partners to gain deeper insights into how Perplexity cites their content.”

The six big brand entities who are receiving VIP invitations are:

Is ScalePost.ai Legit?

There is an ad-hoc feeling to Perplexity’s announcement, not just because it’s short on details, but because it’s made in partnership with a boutique advertising network whose website only has two pages on it, the home page and the “contact us” page. There isn’t even an About Us page or office address listed.

Screenshot Of ScalePost.AI Home Page

The Internet Archive only discovered the site a few months ago, which makes the website younger than the condiments rolling around in most people’s refrigerators.

Screenshot Of ScalePost AI At Internet Archive

Despite all the typical signals that ScalePost is not a legit company, it actually is a legit company.

The founders and senior advisors are are associated with high profile people like the ex-engineering director for Google Peter Norvig and executives from top big brand publishers like Hearst, Conde Nast, Wired and Fast Company. Those aren’t who are people who are associated with the elite upper tier of publishers and technologies, not known championing the earnings of smaller publishers.

Agreement With WordPress

WordPress.com is a web publishing platform and web host owned by Automattic and is not the same as the non-profit WordPress.org, which produces the free content management system (CMS) that powers the majority of the world’s websites.

Their announcement shared details about how the revenue sharing is triggered:

“Being part of Perplexity’s Publishing Partners Program means that knowledge from WordPress.com can now be included in the variety of answers that are served on Perplexity’s “Keep Exploring” section on their Discover pages. That means your articles will be included in their search index and your articles can be surfaced as an answer on their answer engine and Discover feed.  your website is referenced in a Perplexity search result where the company earns advertising revenue, you’ll be eligible for revenue share. “

WordPress.com announced that participation in the revenue share program is on by default for publishers but that there is a way to opt out should publishers who utilize the free-tier of their publishing platform desire to not participate.

A spokesperson for WordPress.com clarified to Nieman Lab that VIP level publishers who pay to host on their premium tier will not be a part of the deal.

Nieman Lab quoted them as saying:

“Megan Fox, a spokesperson for Automattic, clarified the deal excludes publishers hosted on the premium WordPress VIP, including customers like NewsCorp. The deal also carves out an exception for smaller news outlets that use Newspack, a service for local news publishers hosted on WordPress.com, including CalMatters, Capital B, Reveal and Houston Landing.”

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, had no specific details for publishers:

“We’ll share more details of how it works as this partnership evolves, including how we’ll be distributing revenue-share payments to those whose content qualifies.”

…If you want to opt out, we already offer the ability to opt out of content sharing.”

Skepticism About Receiving Perplexity Revenue Share

Influential digital marketer Ryan Jones expressed doubt on X (formerly Twitter):

“Unpopular opinion: Unless you’re one of the top few thousand websites on the internet, LLMs or search engines are never going to pay you for your content.”

Ryan expressed the opinion that only big sites with large amounts of traffic will ever see payments.

Terry Van Horne agreed (and he wasn’t the only one):

“I’d say more like top 100…”

Is There Reason To Be Skeptical?

At this point in time, the arrangement between Perplexity AI and a brand new advertising network is long on promise and doesn’t show any evidence of expertise or experience. Of course some people are skeptical, it might be abnormal to not be skeptical of the arrangement.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Ljupco Smokovski