Masthead CMS gives newsrooms deep editorial workflows and an extensible foundation—customizable content models, GraphQL and webhooks, custom portlets, and Composable or Cloud deployment—so your team can shape the platform to fit the operation, not the other way around.
Masthead Copilot
One assistant across the whole workflow: sharpen the story, format it for multiple surfaces, check it against newsroom standards, then turn it into scheduled, per-network social posts. Switch tabs to see each in action.
Stronger headline, AI overview, SEO title, meta description, and pre-publication style checks — generated in place, then published. Explore Copilot
Per-network captions, auto crops, and Copilot's best time to post — scheduled to Instagram, Facebook, and X without leaving Masthead. Explore Social
Native integrations
Masthead CMS implementations can incorporate Google Ad Manager, Prebid header bidding, analytics stacks, tagging layers, discovery surfaces, social channels, and direct-sold sponsorship workflows your operation uses today—scoped up front rather than improvised after cutover.
Explore ad ops and platform capabilities Explore analytics capabilities Logos shown for identification only; trademarks belong to their owners.
Why newsrooms with complex needs switch
Complex newsrooms outgrow CMS templates that cannot adapt: custom content models get hacked together in plugins, every integration needs a vendor ticket, and editorial, revenue, and audience teams wait on workarounds. Masthead CMS is built around that full operating model with an API-first foundation—schema you configure, portlets you scope, and newsroom workflows that stay native to the platform instead of bolted on.
Core positioning
Masthead CMS is built for newsrooms with complex needs—editorial tooling, customizable schema, migration plans, analytics, audience growth surfaces, and revenue workflows aligned—either as Masthead Cloud CMS (reader site and CMS together on Masthead's edge) or Masthead Composable CMS (same extensible newsroom backend, your framework for the reader experience).
Publishing
Reporters get a WordPress-familiar admin, local drafts and unpublish controls, Masthead DAM, Copilot Review with headline alternatives, media handling, canonical/source fields, revision history, featured/developing controls, and author metadata in one workflow.
Explore the platformExtensibility
Customizable schemas, GraphQL and webhooks, custom portlets, and Composable frontends on Next.js, Astro, or your stack—without forking core CMS code.
See extensibilityGrowth
GAM and Prebid-ready ad slots, direct-sold sponsorships, newsletter gates, subscriptions, and audience follow flows are part of the system.
See analytics supportPlatform extensibility
Masthead CMS is developer-first in architecture: API-first delivery, customizable schemas, and extension points that let complex newsrooms adapt without plugin patchwork or forking core code.
Configure editorial fields, templates, and taxonomies to match desks, franchises, locales, or multi-brand groups—not a fixed blog shape.
Flexible querying for Composable frontends and event hooks for publish, asset, and taxonomy changes across downstream tooling.
Desk-specific dashboards and workflows scoped into the platform so larger newsrooms extend Masthead instead of fighting it.
Explore the platformProduct workflow
Masthead CMS pairs a customizable content layer with newsroom-native surfaces—schema you define, portlets you scope, and GraphQL-powered frontends when you choose Composable. Beyond the API foundation: WordPress-familiar admin, multilingual editions where you need them, story and author pages, realistic Listen article audio, newsletter gates, weather, voter guides, native Sudoku, Wordio, localized puzzles and trivia, obituaries, Masthead DAM, syndication hub, slug-alias redirects, webhooks, on-site search, shortlinks, AI transcripts for audio and video, AI social scheduling, in-CMS analytics portlets, and Google News discovery.
Visual editor, Copilot Review, headline alternatives, multi-format formatting, and story templates.
SEO title, Masthead DAM hero media, focal point, captions, transcripts, Listen audio, and syndication attribution.
Shortlinks, social scheduling, in-CMS analytics, Wordio and puzzles, obituaries, personalization where scoped, slug-alias redirects, and revision history.
Growth and revenue
Masthead CMS packages native Google Ad Manager and Prebid-ready ad architecture, direct-sold sponsorship workflows, newsletter growth, reader engagement through Sudoku, Wordio, localized word search, localized trivia and more, subscription and donation paths where your model needs them, AI-powered social scheduling with shortlinks, in-CMS analytics and SEO portlets, obituaries with syndication tooling, custom portlets for larger publishers, and local utility modules into one cohesive publishing system.
Newsletter gates, category follows, author follows, referral tracking, and campaign landing pages.
See audience workflowsGoogle Ad Manager slots, Prebid header bidding, Open Bidding yield groups, lazy-loaded placements, CMP hooks, and direct-sold sponsorship modules—without sacrificing Core Web Vitals.
See ad ops capabilitiesProgrammatic and direct-sold ads alongside subscriptions, membership, donations, sponsored labels, premium gates, and analytics-ready monetization reporting.
Scope revenue modulesSchedule to Facebook, X, Instagram, and more—with shortlinks, branded story images, first-comment links, and newsroom-ready link-in-bio campaigns.
Learn about AI social toolsSudoku, Wordio, localized word search, localized trivia, and additional puzzle formats integrated natively into your site—no third-party iframe patchwork.
See platform modulesEditorial workflows for life-events content plus syndication tools for partners and redistribution alongside your daily news operation.
See obituaries & syndicationGA, Adobe Analytics, Parse.ly, Chartbeat, and SEO/performance portlets inside the CMS so editors review data where they publish.
Explore analyticsElections, weather, events, restaurants, sports scores, public records, civic info, podcasts, video, and AI-generated transcripts.
Plan local modulesOperating model
Masthead CMS is built for the conversations newsrooms actually have before a relaunch: what moves, what breaks, what improves, who owns the workflow, and how the organization keeps growing after launch.
Archive mapping, redirects, author data, media credits, search metadata, and analytics continuity are planned before launch.
Editors need workflows that match daily coverage, not a generic page builder that requires workarounds for every story type.
Programmatic and direct-sold ads, newsletter capture, sponsorships, subscriptions, social distribution, and ad ops measurement belong inside the platform plan.
Roles for hosting changes, redirects, analytics portlets, SEO validation, and post-launch iteration are explicit so fixes do not stall in handoffs.
Deployment options
Choose how your reader experience is built and hosted. Both paths share the same API-first newsroom backend—customizable schema, editorial workflows, and extension points. Masthead Composable CMS keeps your team in control of the frontend; Masthead Cloud CMS delivers backend and public site together on Masthead’s edge infrastructure.
Headless · bring your own frontend
Use Masthead as your editorial system and content API, then ship the public site on Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit, or any stack you standardize on. Editors get the same workflows, media model, and publishing tools; your engineers own routing, rendering, and how you host and cache pages—endlessly customizing the reader experience on top of Masthead’s extensible backend.
All-in-one · Masthead-hosted on the edge
Run editorial and reader experiences as one Masthead deployment on the Cloudflare edge network: worldwide points of presence, low latency for readers, and capacity that absorbs major traffic spikes with automatic load balancing—without provisioning and tending to your own origin fleet. Customize through schema, portlets, and scoped modules while Masthead CDN handles media delivery end to end—images and assets served at the dimensions each layout needs, in modern formats where supported, with a tuned quality-to-size balance.
Migration promise
Move from WordPress VIP, WordPress, BLOX CMS, TownNews, Arc XP, RSS, XML, SQL, or markdown archives while preserving search equity, media metadata, canonical attribution, subscriber context, and analytics continuity.
Implementation confidence
Masthead CMS is not just a front-end rebuild. The implementation process accounts for migration, editorial adoption, support, analytics continuity, in-CMS measurement portlets, and the business surfaces that keep a complex newsroom running.
Archive mapping, URL preservation, media cleanup, author continuity, redirects, and search equity are planned before launch.
Review migration planningNewsroom workflows, launch support, module planning, and post-launch iteration are scoped around how the publisher actually operates.
Discuss scope and pricingPublishers get a modern platform path with fewer legacy maintenance burdens and a clearer alternative to WordPress VIP, Arc XP, and BLOX CMS.
Compare with WordPress VIPIn-CMS analytics, ad ops reporting, and GAM/Prebid validation are treated as launch requirements, not afterthoughts.
Explore analyticsContact sales
Comparison
Masthead CMS is positioned for publishers comparing enterprise WordPress, large media operating systems, and legacy local-media suites against a faster, more focused newsroom platform.
FAQ
Masthead CMS is built for newsrooms and publishing groups with complex workflows—multi-site operations, custom content models, migration at scale, native ad ops integration, revenue tools, analytics support, and API-first extensibility when your team needs it.
Developer-first describes the architecture, not the buyer. Masthead CMS is API-first and extensible—customizable schemas, GraphQL, webhooks, and custom portlets—while editors still get WordPress-familiar workflows and newsroom-native tooling.
You define content types and schema, scope custom portlets for desk-specific dashboards, and connect automation through GraphQL and webhooks. With Masthead Composable CMS, your team owns the reader frontend on Next.js, Astro, or similar stacks; with Masthead Cloud CMS, customization happens through schema, portlets, and scoped modules on Masthead-hosted infrastructure.
Yes. Masthead CMS offers white-label games natively on your site—including Sudoku, Wordio, localized word search, localized trivia, and additional formats—so habitual engagement stays under your brand.
Yes. Reader templates support GAM (GPT) slot architecture and Prebid.js or Prebid Server header bidding mapped to GAM key-values and yield groups. Lazy loading and CMP hooks can be scoped so programmatic demand works alongside direct-sold sponsorships.
No. Masthead CMS serves commercial publishers, nonprofit newsrooms, and hybrid models that combine programmatic ads, direct-sold sponsorships, subscriptions, and donations.
Yes. Newsroom analytics portlets for Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Parse.ly, Chartbeat, and SEO/performance dashboards can be scoped into the implementation so measurement is planned before launch.
Obituaries are managed in the CMS with editorial workflows and syndication tools for partner distribution, alongside the rest of the newsroom catalogue.
Yes. Masthead CMS migration planning can cover WordPress VIP, WordPress, Arc XP, BLOX CMS, TownNews, RSS, XML, SQL, and archive exports while preserving content, media, authors, redirects, and search equity.
No. Masthead CMS pricing is scoped through a sales conversation because each newsroom has different migration, launch, support, module, and integration needs.
Yes. Masthead CMS includes AI-powered social scheduling workflows for Facebook, X, Instagram, branded story images, first-comment links, and newsroom link-in-bio promotion.
Masthead CMS includes Masthead Copilot for headline and summary generation, multi-format formatting, AI-generated transcripts for audio and video, realistic text-to-speech narration for articles, and automated legal or style-guide vetting before publication. Access to narration can be controlled for paying subscribers, newsletter subscribers, or other audience criteria.
Yes. Multi-site publishing can support shared platform standards while allowing each local brand to preserve its own identity, homepage priorities, revenue needs, and audience workflows.
