IBJ Paywall: How to Read Indianapolis Business Journal Articles for Free

The Indianapolis Business Journal, known to everyone in the city as IBJ, is the weekly business paper and daily news site for central Indiana. Owned by IBJ Media, it covers commercial real estate, downtown development, the life sciences and motorsports industries, state and city politics as they affect business, and the sports economy around the Colts, the Pacers, the Fever and the Speedway. Its stories are passed around offices, city council chambers and neighbourhood groups all week, and a reader following a link from the IBJ Eight@8 newsletter or from social media often lands on the subscription prompt. This guide explains how the paywall works and how to read a full story.

How the IBJ paywall works

IBJ uses a metered paywall. Non-subscribers can open a limited number of articles a month before the body is replaced by a prompt to subscribe, and the count is kept in a browser cookie. Some pieces, particularly the longer features and the print edition's cover stories, are marked for subscribers from the first visit.

The gate is applied in the browser. The site delivers the full text of each article in the page so that search engines can index it, and a script then checks your cookie and hides the body if you are over the limit. A crawler-style reader that fetches the page without running that script receives the complete article. Our explainer on metered versus hard paywalls sets out why that distinction matters.

Our tests on 15 October 2026 through Skip the Paywall:

• A 776-word IBJ report on Indiana congressman Jefferson Shreve pushing for a national study of pre-approved home plans loaded in full, all 42 paragraphs.
• A 667-word IBJ story on the all-ages music venue Hoosier Dome closing as the building's owner plans a redevelopment loaded in full, all 28 paragraphs.
• A 501-word IBJ report on a developer eyeing a spring 2027 opening for a $75 million Carmel apartment project loaded in full, all 23 paragraphs.
• A 361-word IBJ story on GE Aerospace investing $65 million in its Indiana plants loaded in full, all 20 paragraphs. It is a short item, and 361 words is the whole of it.

Earlier in October 2026 we had only checked short IBJ items, which is why the site was not on our list sooner. The longer stories above settle the question.

Read an IBJ article in full

• Copy the article link. IBJ links look like ibj.com/articles/headline-slug, sometimes with newsletter tracking parameters on the end, which can stay or go.
• Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
• The story appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.

Other approaches

• Newsletters. IBJ's free daily email, Eight@8, summarises the morning's stories and links to them, and there are free weekly briefings on real estate, health care and other beats.
• Library access. The Indianapolis Public Library and several suburban systems offer IBJ through their business databases and newspaper collections with a library card.
• The print edition. The weekly paper is sold at newsstands around the city and carries the cover stories that are most often gated online.
• Private windows. The meter lives in a cookie, so a private window resets it, though subscriber-only pieces stay locked.

How it compares with other business papers

IBJ belongs to the same family of city business weeklies as the American City Business Journals titles, which block the reader, so it is worth knowing that IBJ is the exception. National business trades such as American Banker and Sports Business Journal load in full, as does Business Insider. IBJ Media also publishes Indiana Lawyer, which very likely uses the same platform, but we have not tested it and only list sites we have confirmed. The full list of sites that work is kept current.

Subscribe if you read it regularly

IBJ is a locally owned newsroom covering a beat that the city's daily paper has largely given up, and it depends on subscriptions and the print edition. If you follow Indianapolis development, politics or the sports business closely, a subscription is the right way to keep that reporting going.