Andrew Sullivan is having a tough time keeping his subscription-backed site, The Dish, going. In an effort to spur cheap bastards to pay up, he recently announced he was changing the site’s metered paywall. Now he has taken things a step farther.

Sullivan writes that there is a new $1.99 per month subscription, which will give readers another payment option in addition to the original plan:

Like the $19.99-a-year option, we’re also leaving it up to you if you’d like to pay more – even if that’s only $2 or as much as $5. The point of course is to make this available to as many people at as many price points as you want and need, above a minimum baseline.

Sullivan adds that the site’s gross income is currently at $653,000, not too far from the goal of getting $900,000 by January 1, 2014. However, he explains, “Almost all the likeliest subscribers have joined already. It gets tougher from here on out.”

Andrew Sullivan and his experiment in ad-free, completely subscriber based content got off to a great start, but things have since fizzled. In a post, Sullivan wrote that while traffic to The Dish was strong with one million visitors last month, it was time to tighten his metered paywall. From now on, visitors will be allowed only 5 free “read-on” stories (longer features) per 60 days, instead of the previous seven free stories per 30 days.

The two main factors that made Sullivan decrease the free stories was people accessing the site from different platforms and sales that “flat-lined once the meter reset for most people.”

Since Sullivan is diplomatic and happy about all of his readers, we’ll say what he won’t: Pay the man. If you enjoy The Dish, pay for it. It’s only $20 a year. Buy one less Snickers per week or something.

Andrew Sullivan, one of The Daily Beast’s biggest names, is leaving. Sullivan explained today that he and his blogging team are leaving the company and setting up their own (Dish Publishing LLC) and will ask readers to pay to view the content.

From now until February 1, The Dish will remain under The Daily Beast’s umbrella. After that it will shift to andrewsullivan.com and the posts will be subscriber only. The rate will be $19.99 per year, although Sullivan notes that people can pay more if they want. The new site will also be completely dependent on reader support, which is a pretty daring thing to do.

“Here’s the core principle: we want to create a place where readers — and readers alone — sustain the site,” wrote Sullivan. “No bigger media companies will be subsidizing us; no venture capital will be sought to cushion our transition (unless my savings count as venture capital); and, most critically, no advertising will be getting in the way.”

“If this model works,” continued Sullivan, “We’ll have proof of principle that a small group of writers and editors can be paid directly by readers, and that an independent site, if tended to diligently, can grow an audience large enough to sustain it indefinitely.”

That’s a gigantic “if.”

Update (1:55 pm):
The new site will be a “metered” system, like the New York Times. Readers will be able to view a certain amount of articles per month for free, and then be asked to pay. The system will be triggered by those readers clicking on “the jump.” Inbound links to his site won’t count toward the total.