Publishing Operations Without Per-Vendor Per-Reader Taxes.

Digital publishers stitch CMS (WordPress VIP / Drupal), ad serving (Google Ad Manager + Prebid), paywall (Piano / Pico / Memberful), email (Substack / Mailchimp), video (Brightcove / JW Player), and DRM into separate vendor stacks — paying per-impression + per-subscriber + per-MAU fees at every layer. Aeion's media stack — Ads + Content + Media + Commerce + Marketing + Manuscript — unifies it. Multi-network ad waterfall + AI optimization. Native paywall + subscription billing. Forensic DRM + watermarking. 0% per-transaction fees.

What Aeion Ships for Publishers

Multi-Network Ad Waterfall

Twelve networks — AdSense, Meta, Amazon, Taboola, and more — plus direct-sold and house ads all compete for every single impression, with AI picking the winner per user instead of a static waterfall order. That competition typically lifts revenue 25-40% over a flat baseline, and ads.txt generates itself so you're never chasing a compliance file by hand. Read Ads →

Native Paywall + Subscriptions

Paywall rules run per-article, per-section, or per-tier, with subscription billing through Stripe Connect at 0% Aeion fee — so the only fee on a subscription is Stripe's own. AI drives dunning, retention, and churn prediction, and every anonymous reader is tracked through the funnel until the moment they convert to a subscriber. Read Commerce →

Forensic DRM + Watermarking

Every piece of premium content carries an invisible, per-subscriber fingerprint — so if it leaks, it traces straight back to the subscriber and timestamp it came from, not a guessing game across your whole reader base. Video ships with HLS AES-128 encryption and per-territory enforcement, so a leaked clip doesn't become a global distribution problem. Read Media →

AI Content Tools

AeionClaw's `aeion-content-manager` skill drafts headlines, summarizes long articles, generates social variants for every platform, suggests SEO improvements, and auto-translates for international audiences — with every AI action audit-logged so editorial can always show exactly what the AI touched.

Email Newsletter + Marketing

Each subscriber gets their own preference center, campaigns run per-segment through the lifecycle, and newsletter performance tracks alongside everything else — because subscriber identity is unified across paywall, newsletter, and comments instead of living in three separate systems. Read Marketing →

Video + Podcast Distribution

One upload transcodes to HLS, DASH, and MP3 and syndicates out to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube automatically, with per-episode analytics and Whisper-generated captions and transcripts along the way — and forensic watermarking rides along on the video itself.

Author + Book Publishing (Manuscript)

Independent authors and small presses get EPUB, Kindle, and print-on-demand output, royalty splits calculated per author, reader analytics, and ten-tier licensing that covers everything from standard sync rights to AI-training and exclusive deals. Read Manuscript →

Audience Intelligence (BI)

Pageviews, dwell time, scroll depth, and conversion roll up per article; lifetime value rolls up per subscriber; retention curves roll up per cohort — the same real-time view that used to require stitching together Chartbeat and Parsely. Read BI →

The Monetization Math

Traditional publisher stack costs:

WordPress VIP: $25K-200K/year (enterprise tier)
Google Ad Manager: free tier to 90M impressions, then % of revenue
Piano (paywall + analytics): $50K-500K/year
Stripe Press / Memberful: ~3% per subscription transaction
Cloudinary: $80-3500/month per workload tier
Brightcove: $50K-300K/year
Substack: 10% per subscription
Mailchimp Premium: $300+/month
Chartbeat + Parsely: $30K-100K/year
Total typical: $200K-1M+/year

Aeion's à-la-carte publisher stack:

Ads: $29/mo flat, unlimited users
Manuscript: $29/mo flat, unlimited users
Marketing: $49/mo flat, unlimited users
Commerce: $79/mo flat, unlimited users
BI: $39/mo (Core) or $79/mo (Pro)
Content + Media: included free with any module
0% transaction fees on paywall subs (Stripe still charges its 2.9%+30¢)
0% per-impression fees on Aeion-owned ad inventory
AI included
Forensic DRM included
14-day free trial, no permanent free tier

Per-100K-subscriber savings (typical):

Piano paywall + Memberful: ~$50K + $7K = $57K
Substack 10% fee: ~$60K/year on $600K subscription revenue
Cloudinary mid-tier: ~$24K
Substack/Mailchimp: ~$8K
Total: ~$140K-200K/year saved
Plus AI tools that would cost $30-80K/year via point solutions
Plus 25-40% RPM lift on ad inventory = $250-500K incremental ad revenue
Net Year-1 impact: $400-800K

Publishing AI

Content Drafting + Optimization: The aeion-content-manager skill drafts headlines (5-10 variations per article), generates social-media variants per platform (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram), suggests SEO improvements grounded in historical performance, auto-translates for international audiences. Editor reviews + approves; AI doesn't auto-publish.

Anti-Plagiarism + Source Verification: Per-article fingerprinting against published corpus. AI detects when AI-generated content was submitted. Per-quote attribution checks (verify sources before publication). Industry-standard for editorial quality.

Subscriber Churn Prediction: Per-subscriber engagement decay detection. AI surfaces at-risk subscribers 30-60 days before cancellation. Auto-trigger retention campaigns. Reduces churn 15-25% in test deployments.

Ad Yield Optimization: Per-impression eCPM prediction across 12 networks. Per-user + per-context optimization. Auto-floor-price tuning. Header-bidding + waterfall hybrid. 25-40% RPM lift.

Content Performance Forecasting: Per-article performance predicted before publication based on headline + topic + historical patterns. Editorial team prioritizes high-potential pieces.

Audience Segmentation: Per-cohort behavior analysis. RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) scoring on subscriber base. AI surfaces high-value-but-disengaged subscribers for special outreach.