GENERAL INFO SLIDES
● About Pugpg
● Pugpig Bolt description
● Pugpig Bolt at a glance
PROPOSAL SLIDES
● Our proposal in summary
● Launching apps with Pugpig
● Project delivery and support
● Pricing - Licenses
● Pricing - Launch project
● Post launch care and maintenance
SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE PUGPIG APPS
At Pugpig, we believe that the media matters — and that it has a bright future.
We spend our days developing, configuring and customising our app platform in close collaboration with our customers to help secure that future. We power over 400 apps for 130 of the world’s leading media companies — across news, consumer, business and broadcast — from The Boston Globe, DMGT, Condé Nast and The Independent, to News Corporation, Hearst, Future PLC and many more. Our teams in London, New York and Manila bring deep expertise and hands-on support, wherever you are in the world.
Bolt allows you to build beautiful branded mobile apps that properly embrace the power of mobile and will have your audience hooked.
Feed content straight from your own CMS and publish automatically as live content and/or digital editions. No additional editorial work required. All the content you publish works beautifully across all platforms.
It’s integrated with all the major app stores and plugs into your own subs systems.
It provides a customisable set of curated cards that surface stories, audio, video, podcasts, events, puzzles, promotions, products, advertising, sponsorship and more.
You can publish digital editions as responsive and interactive HTML pages, native PDF pages, or a hybrid of the two (which we call Enhanced PDF).
It’s packed with features including semantic and free text search, reader personalization, push preferences, follow features, native audio and video players, (including a TikTok style vertical video player), offline mode, archive, airplay and carplay, along with the basics like sharing, deep linking, night mode, bookmarking, text resize and loads more.
And it’s super flexible - we’ll work with you to create any bespoke features that you require.
SERVICES
Consulting services
Product strategy and design
App store optimisation
Analytics and insight
Launch services
Onboarding
Configuration + customisation
Integrating 3rd party tools
Operational services
Support & maintenance
Enterprise services
Native app framework for Apple devices.
Native app framework for Android devices.
iPhone and iPad optimised
Phone and tablet optimised
Web app framework for all browsers, including web reader for digital editions.
Desktop and mobile optimised.
Tailored dashboards providing app analytics and insight
Site and app management, content delivery
Content storage, theming and styling
Importing content and curation logic from your CMS
Straight from your CMS into your app
Our proposal is built on a simple premise: rather than developing a bespoke solution internally or via an agency, you can license a proven, world-class platform trusted by many of the world’s leading media brands.
This approach delivers results faster, more effectively, and with far lower risk and cost. With Pugpig, you’re investing in a platform we actively support, maintain and evolve to meet the demands of the industry.
Launching your apps is just the start. We’re in it for the long haul — working closely with your team to help you get the most from the platform. Using the analytics and insight it provides, we’ll continuously refine your apps to better serve your readers.
Pugpig Bolt is the product of over a decade of R&D. By licensing it, you tap into a service that evolves weekly — with regular updates that keep you ahead of the curve.
Other platforms exist, but ours is the only one built from the ground up with native mobile tech at its core. While others began with PDF page-turning on desktop, we’ve stayed true to our mobile-first roots since day one.
By combining the strength of our platform with the expertise of our team, we believe there’s no better way to help you meet — and exceed — your goals.
This deck includes a breakdown of costs and the process for launching your app on Pugpig. It’s based on what we’ve learned from our conversations so far and our experience delivering similar projects for other publishers.
Our team has years of experience helping publishers build, launch and iterate on apps with Pugpig Bolt, which currently powers over 400 apps across a range of publishing sectors. At the start of your project, you’ll be assigned a Customer Support Engineer, Customer Success Manager, Technical Project Manager, and Lead Developer, who will guide you through the entire process — from launch to ongoing optimisation.
At the core of the platform is Pugpig Express, our backend service that delivers any kind of digital content to your app via automated feeds. This allows seamless integration with your existing content tools, enabling a fully automated editorial workflow. Pugpig Express also includes flexible styling options, which we’ll extend to match your provided designs. We’ll use responsive HTML to deliver consistent layouts across devices and platforms. Alternatively, you can deliver your content directly into the apps through your own web pages.
Our native Pugpig Bolt frameworks are packed with on-device features including: search, sharing, cross-platform linking, offline reading and listening, push notifications and preferences, native video and audio players, dark mode, text resizing, user personalisation, webhooks to connect your experience to the native device, AirPlay, CarPlay and fully native UI controls like scrolling, swiping and organising.
All of this results in a considerably higher quality of service and user experience to the competitor set.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Pugpig Bolt is sold as an annual licence and includes iOS, Android, Web, access to all back-end systems and infrastructure, all product features, along with base product support support and a dedicated customer success manager (CSM).
Licence fees are tiered and based on the amount of content you distribute through Pugpig. The higher the tier, the lower the relative cost of the service. You choose the tier that you expect will cover your business needs and if you need extra capacity at any point you can burst without having to make a bigger commitment. Based on the fact there is no exiting mobile app for Denison Forum we recommend starting the license on our entry, Medium tier - We can review tiers with you before we activate your service and you can upgrade to a higher tier at any time.
All prices valid until December 31st, 2025 Your licence is activated and invoiced when we start to get things set up for you. It is not tied to your launch date. All
are subject to an annual 5% increase or CPI whichever the greater
The cost to launch your apps will depend entirely on the level of customization you require on top of our product. Based on our understanding of your requirements, technology stack and previous project we’ve completed in the past. We estimate the project to build and launch a new Denison Forum app may take somewhere between 5-15 days effort. This will provide you with all the additional development effort you need in order to get up and running. And of course if your app is more complex the effort will increase accordingly.
Launch activities would typically involve configuring feed handlers, CSS styling, creating custom content cards/timelines, integrating with your various different third party systems. If you wish to dig in more, we’d sit down with you and scope all of this out before kicking off any work. All professional services work is performed on a time and material basis.
Below we’ve mapped out three options to support your app once live.
Purchase days as and when you need them, this will cover all work carried out by the Pugpig team including bug fixes maintenance and updates, as well as project work for site / app improvements. All services will be performed on a time and materials basis and services will be provided on our ad-hoc day rate, and require no upfront commitment.
Purchase buckets of 10 days or more which is then drawn down upon as work is carried out by the Pugpig team. As you are making a commitment we’re able to provide a discounted day rate. We’ll put in place a support / budget tracker and report on how the time is spent each month in our regular catch ups. We’ll agree with you upfront on how to manage approvals for any work done (our standard approach is to seek approval for any work over 0.5 days but to press without approval for anything critical or less than 0.5 expected days).
A Pugpig Enterprise licence bundles services such as BAU support for fixes and small tweaks, additional support hours, third party integration support, Advanced Analytics and other services, listed later in this deck. Going with Enterprise provides a predictable and further discounted way to manage your support throughout the year and is sold as an annual licence. The fees for an Enterprise licence depends on the level of support and maintenance that you expect to need throughout the year, along with any additional services you opt to take.
All prices valid until December 31st, 2025 Your licence is activated and invoiced when we start to get things set up for you. It is not tied to your launch date.
All prices are subject to an annual 5% increase or CPI whichever the greater
The Pulitzer Prize–winning daily newspaper known for its investigative journalism and comprehensive coverage of Boston and New England integrates Pugpig Bolt with ArcXP to deliver a mix of written news, live reporting, audio, video, puzzles and the daily e-paper.
Off the shelf Pugpig Bolt with custom cards and integrations and an Enhanced PDF digital edition.
The Independent is a ground breaking, politically independent, quality news media brand that became the UK’s first digital only broadsheet in 2016, powered by Pugpig. The app brings together highly curated timelines with custom styling, live blogging, video player, audio articles, an HTML edition and a sophisticated set of registration and subscription features.
Established in 1828, The Spectator is the go-to destination for thought provoking political, cultural and current affairs journalism. Their beautifully designed Pugpig powered app shows that the world’s oldest magazine can fully embrace digital and with great success. The app delivers live news and digital editions along with a large library of podcasts and video. Given the high number of iPad users, the design has also been optimised for large format devices.
The go-to platform for in-depth reporting and unapologetic commentary outside the mainstream.
Launched at breakneck speed in summer 2025, landing straight in at #3 on the Apple App Store news charts. Our first Substack integration. Also the first implementation of our upgraded External Linking feature, enabling users to subscribe via The Free Press website and transition seamlessly into the app – already logged in.
Stylist is the UK's leading media brand for women, accounting for 40% of the women's lifestyle sector. Launched in 2009, it offers daily digital content, a monthly print edition, and a weekly digital edition with a mission to support, uplift, and entertain.
The app is central to the brand’s premium offering, Stylist+, with subscriber-only content and premium features that drive value and habit for their most loyal audience.
The world's biggest running media brand, Runner's World offers their readers the latest expert advice on training, nutrition, health, injury prevention, gear and the best races to try.
The app is complete with an extensive training plan library and other premium content, benefits and rewards. Kept behind a paywall, the training plan library is core to the brand’s new membership proposition, ‘Runner’s World Club’, and is exclusive to Silver and Gold subscribers.
Founded in 1899, MIT Technology Review provides expert insight, and in-depth reporting on emerging technologies. Deriving its authority from its relationship to the one of the world’s foremost technology institutions, readers are given unequaled access to leading researchers. The app features highly customised timeline feeds that centre audience engagementincluding hero stories, opinion sections and “Editor’sPick” carousels. Targeted promo cards upsell premium packages to boost reader revenue.
The British digital magazine that aims to push back against herd mentality in politics and the media, offering long-form commentary, analysis, and opinion pieces across culture, society, and global affairs. It features contributions from a range of writers with diverse perspectives, often challenging mainstream narratives. The app has a unique design and is packed with a mix of written, video and audio storytelling. It also surfaces the many events that form the backbone of the UnHerd offering.
The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit newsroom delivering bold, independent journalism for Baltimore and beyond. Launched in 2022, it’s redefining local news with deep reporting, community focus, and a mission to inform, engage, and uplift the region one story at a time.
The app features an engaging vertical video ‘news in brief’ carousel. Users can choose to view video content from within the carousel, full screen, or picture-in-picture to allow for simultaneous in-app browsing.
