What is the business model of Zhihu

Zhihu, China’s leading Q&A community and original content platform, has experienced a transformation from early ad revenue to diversified “marketing services + paid membership + vocational education” triad, and now into an AI-enabled transition. The core of Zhihu’s business model lies in combining high-quality content, professional creators, and AI technology capabilities to build a commercial system based on “gain-based” content ecology. Through subscription memberships, content commercialization solutions, and vocational education, it has achieved a leap from content community to knowledge service ecosystem. In Q1 2025, Zhihu first achieved consecutive two quarters of Non-GAAP profitability, marking the gradual maturation of its business model.

Revenue Structure: Diversified Monetization System

Zhihu’s revenue structure has undergone significant changes, evolving from an early single ad revenue model to a diversified monetization system. In 2022, Zhihu’s income was mainly composed of advertising, paid memberships, content commerce solutions, vocational training, and other businesses. Among them, advertising revenue reached 9.26 billion yuan, down 20.2% year-on-year, accounting for 25.7% of total revenue in 2022; paid membership revenue was 12.31 billion yuan, up 84.1% year-on-year, becoming the largest income source with a share of 34.1%; vocational training business revenue reached 248 million yuan, up 442% year-on-year, accounting for 6.9% of total revenue.

In 2023, Zhihu further adjusted its revenue structure, integrating advertising and content commerce solutions into the “marketing services” segment. In Q2 2023, paid membership revenue reached 449 million yuan, up 65.6% year-on-year, accounting for 43% of total revenue; marketing services revenue was 413 million yuan, down 13.6% year-on-year, accounting for 39.5% of total revenue; vocational education revenue reached 145 million yuan, up 213.3% year-on-year, accounting for 13.9% of total revenue; other revenues were 37.9 million yuan, down 6.8% year-on-year, accounting for 3.6% of total revenue.

In 2024, Zhihu first achieved quarterly profitability, with annual total revenue of 35.99 billion yuan, a 14.29% decline; net profit attributable to shareholders was -172 million yuan, up 79.64% year-on-year. Paid membership revenue reached 17.6 billion yuan, accounting for about 48.9%, becoming the absolute core business; marketing services revenue reached 12 billion yuan, accounting for 33.3%; vocational education business accounted for about 12.8%. In Q1 2025, paid reading business contributed 418 million yuan in revenue, accounting for 57.3%; marketing services revenue was 197 million yuan, accounting for 27%; vocational education revenue reached 94.53 million yuan, accounting for 13%. Q3 financial report showed that paid reading business revenue reached 386 million yuan, accounting for 58.5%; marketing services revenue was 189 million yuan, accounting for 28.7%; other businesses (including vocational education) contributed 83.9 million yuan in revenue, accounting for 12.8%.

This change in revenue structure reflects the maturation process of Zhihu’s business model. Paid membership has become the most stable income source for Zhihu, with its share increasing from 22.6% in 2021 to 57.3% in Q1 2025, mainly due to the continuous growth of Salt Selection memberships. In Q3 2025, Zhihu’s monthly average number of subscribers reached 14.3 million, a 8.1% increase year-on-year.

The vocational education business has become the fastest-growing second curve, rising from 6.9% in 2022 to 12.8% in 2024 and maintaining stable growth after becoming an independent operation in 2025.

Core Businesses: Paid Reading, Vocational Education, and Marketing Services

Zhihu’s business model revolves around three core businesses, each with distinct characteristics that complement each other.

Paid Reading (Salt Selection Membership) is Zhihu’s most successful commercial product. Salt Selection membership offers automatic continuous monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions at prices of 19 yuan, 53 yuan, and 198 yuan respectively. As of Q3 2025, Zhihu has 14.3 million monthly average subscribers, a 8.1% increase year-on-year. Salt Selection content includes stories and novels, books and magazines, live and recorded lectures, and audiobooks. Among them, the Salt Talk Stories brand has cumulatively authorized over 90 works for short film adaptations, gradually developing into a high-quality script pool for emerging industries like short films and animated series. The success of paid reading is attributed to Zhihu’s unique “gain-based” content ecology and AI technology empowerment in content production and distribution. For example, Salt Selection authors can reduce creation cycles by over 30% using AI tools, and AI-assisted content has an average number of likes increased by 25%, and completion rate improved by 18%.

Vocational Education (Zhihu Knows学堂) is Zhihu’s fastest-growing business segment. Zhihu Knows学堂 covers high-demand areas such as postgraduate exams, civil service exams, teacher qualifications, CPA, CFA, MBA, and career skill development. In Q4 2024, Zhihu first achieved quarterly profitability with adjusted net profit of 97.1 million yuan, a sharp contrast to the 91.3 million yuan loss in the same period last year. Zhihu has positioned vocational education as its second growth curve, providing AI quality inspection and intelligent diagnosis solutions through partnerships with top-tier hospitals, matching the 95.4% industry application accuracy rate of Kuaishou’s medical large model. The success of vocational education stems from Zhihu’s precise positioning and support for “new professionals” and AI-driven personalization in course recommendations and learning paths.

Marketing Services is Zhihu’s traditional business but has faced challenges recently. In Q3 2025, Zhihu marketing services revenue reached 189 million yuan, accounting for 28.7%. Marketing services include brand advertising, search advertising, content tasks, etc., achieving full traffic coverage. Zhihu’s DEEP TRUST scientific marketing system provides end-to-end support for brand marketing from competitive diagnosis to precise投放 and effect measurement. The decline in marketing services revenue (from 40% in 2023 to 28.7% in Q3 2025) reflects Zhihu’s active reduction of low-efficiency ad placements, shifting focus to improving profit margins. In 2024, Zhihu’s gross margin expanded to 60.6%, a five-year high, partly due to restructuring of marketing services.

These three business segments form Zhihu’s diversified monetization system, mutually supporting and synergistically developing. Paid reading and vocational education businesses together constitute Zhihu’s “content monetization” core, while marketing services provide stable cash flow support. This structure allows Zhihu to maintain a healthy community ecology while maximizing commercial value.

Balancing Community Culture and Business Model

Zhihu’s business model is closely related to its community culture, with maintaining the professionalism and credibility of the community being a core challenge during commercialization.

Zhihu’s early elite culture (strict invitation system, real-name expert certification) laid the foundation for professional content, but free traditionalism and cautious attitude toward ecology hindered early commercialization. After opening registration in 2013, Zhihu shifted to socialization and interest-based, expanding user base but causing content quality differentiation, leading to declining ad revenue. After 2023, Zhihu rebalanced community culture with business model through “Salt Plan 5.0” creator incentive mechanisms.

Salt Plan 5.0 focuses on professional creators by providing blue label certification and traffic weighting, encouraging high-quality content creation. As of February 2023, the plan has covered nearly 2 million core creators, with monthly active creation growth of 7%, new content interaction growth of 22%, and mobile user screen time growth of 16%. In 2025, Zhihu-certified creators increased by 46%, AI-related content grew by 200%, forming a positive cycle of “high-quality content supply - user payment - creator incentives”.

Zhihu’s user segmentation strategy is key to balancing community culture and business model. Zhihu segments users into professionals, interests, exam preparation, etc., targeting course or content recommendations to improve conversion rates. For example, professional groups have high engagement and willingness to pay, being both content producers and high-value consumers. A questionnaire survey showed that high-education (master’s/diploma) and high-income users are more inclined to pay for knowledge, aligning with the professional profile.

In terms of content quality, Zhihu maintains its professional community positioning through “gain-based” content standards and AI-assisted review mechanisms. Zhihu content has been cited by all-AI tools at 29.9%, ranking first among content communities, reflecting its professionalism and credibility. However, Salt Selection membership relies on entertainment content (like romance novels) to attract paid users, leading to low conversion rates (5.9% in 2021), and user complaints centered around false advertising and fee issues, potentially affecting long-term monetization.

To address this contradiction, Zhihu adopted a “content segmentation” strategy, separating Salt Talk Stories entertainment content from professional communities, prioritizing high-liked professional answers through algorithms to enhance visibility. At the same time, Zhihu expanded content formats via “ideas” video shortening but ensured professionalism through “gain-based” standards.

Deep AI Empowerment of Business Model

Zhihu has made significant progress in AI applications, Zhihu Direct Answers has become the core entry point for users to access knowledge, with a penetration rate exceeding 15%. In April 2023, Zhihu launched its self-developed large model “Zhishui AI”; in June 2024, it introduced AI search product “Zhihu Direct Answers”; in April 2025, Zhihu Direct Answers integrated the “full-blooded” DeepSeek-R1, and one month later, it was upgraded again to support direct tracing of answers from real creators.

AI’s empowerment of Zhihu’s business model mainly manifests in the following aspects:

Content Production Efficiency: Zhihu provides AI-assisted tools for creators, such as quickly generating story outlines and character relationship diagrams, or using voice-to-text functions to efficiently record inspiration, shortening long-form content creation cycles by over 30%. AI-assisted content has an average number of likes increased by 25%, completion rate improved by 18%, directly enhancing content quality and user payment willingness.

User Retention and Engagement: Zhihu Direct Answers gained widespread recognition for its professional, trustworthy experience, especially in areas requiring authenticity and depth. In Q1 2025, Zhihu’s daily active users spent nearly 38 minutes on the platform, a 17.6% increase year-on-year, with core user retention achieving both环比 and同比 improvements.

Commercialization Efficiency Optimization: AI-driven personalized recommendations positively impacted user retention and engagement. Zhihu uses dynamic sorting algorithms combined with real-time interest, content timeliness, and social relationships to optimize recommendation strategies through reinforcement learning, improving click rates and dwell time. In advertising, scenario-based recommendations (e.g., “digital product reviews” inserting e-commerce links) increased marketing service revenue click rate by 40%, achieving the “need - answer - consumption” closed loop.

Enterprise Service Expansion: Zhihu Direct Answers’ private knowledge base function has attracted education and financial industry clients to purchase enterprise versions for employee compliance knowledge retrieval. Vertical solutions (e.g., medical AI quality inspection) match Kuaishou’s 95.4% industry application accuracy rate, forming technical barriers. Zhihu CFO Wang Han stated that the company will further strengthen commercial resilience, explore new revenue models, and focus on achieving sustainable, high-quality growth.

However, AI applications also pose challenges. Large model inference costs are extremely high (e.g., training cost of a thousand-card GPU cluster exceeds 1 billion yuan), while current 15% penetration rate has not fully covered R&D investment. Additionally, AI-integrated answers may cause users to focus on content rather than creators’ personalities, weakening personal IP value, with some creators concerned about being “depersonalized”.

Business Model Characteristics and Future Directions

Zhihu’s business model has several notable characteristics:

Positive Cycle of Content - User - Monetization: Zhihu combines high-quality content, professional creators, and AI technology capabilities to build a commercial system based on the “gain-based” content ecology. Professional answers cited can bring creator分成, AI tools promote high-quality content circulation efficiency, forming a positive cycle of “high-quality content supply - user payment - creator incentives”.

Differentiated Competitive Strategy: Zhihu emphasizes a dual carrier media positioning of “information + trust”, building a moat through professional content and trusted expert networks. Zhihu Direct Answers’ core advantage over other AI search tools lies in its deep integration with Zhihu’s 500 million+ professional Q&A and 50 million+ literature, answers traceable to real creators, and the “@user” function directly linking creator accounts, reducing AI hallucination while strengthening content credibility.

Diversified Monetization Pathways: Zhihu achieves a leap from content community to knowledge service ecosystem through membership subscriptions, content commercialization solutions, and vocational education. Paid membership provides stable cash flow, vocational education brings high growth, and marketing services enhance efficiency through precise投放.

Cost Control and Efficiency Improvement: Zhihu optimizes content review and ad placement precision with AI technology, achieving a 60.6% gross margin in 2024, a five-year high. In Q1 2025, Zhihu’s gross margin increased by 5.2 percentage points to 61.8%, reflecting strict execution and operational efficiency improvements.

Future directions for Zhihu’s business model include:

Deep AI Integration: Zhihu Direct Answers plans to increase penetration rate to over 25%, develop enterprise version API interfaces, and explore knowledge copyright derivative value. Zhou Yuan stated, “The synergistic effect of high-quality content × trusted expert network × AI capability will continue to strengthen, and Zhihu is accelerating its transformation into an AI-native community.”

Content Ecosystem Protection: Zhihu will further differentiate entertainment content like Salt Talk Stories from professional communities, prioritizing high-liked professional answers through algorithm optimization to maintain the “trustworthy content” brand. At the same time, Zhihu will strengthen content authenticity guarantees through fact-checking models and community co-governance mechanisms to combat false information.

Vocational Education Expansion: Zhihu Knows学堂 will combine AI technology for personalized course recommendations, deepening partnerships with top-tier hospitals to enhance course professionalism and conversion efficiency. Zhou Yuan believes that the next five years will be a period of technological红利 from large models and talent红利 from “new professionals”, with Zhihu continuing to invest in AI applications, integrating AI further into diverse community scenarios.

User Growth and Retention: Zhihu will maintain operational efficiency by improving core user retention and daily active time. Zhou Yuan stated, “We see continuous improvements in core user retention rate, daily active user visit duration, and creator activity, demonstrating the vitality of the community.” Despite a 21.2% year-on-year decline in MAU to 83 million in 2024, Zhihu has achieved steady growth in user health and engagement through optimized user experience and community atmosphere.

Challenges and Responses to Business Model

Zhihu’s business model still faces some challenges that need continuous addressing.

User Growth Bottlenecks: Zhihu’s average monthly active users dropped to 83 million in 2024, a 21.2% year-on-year decline. User growth stagnation may affect advertising and content ecosystem development. Zhihu’s response is focusing on core user retention and experience improvement through AI-optimized content matching efficiency to enhance user stickiness and payment willingness.

Content Quality Controversies: Salt Selection membership relies on entertainment content (like romance novels) leading to low conversion rates, with user complaints centered around false advertising and fee issues, potentially affecting long-term monetization. Zhihu’s response is strengthening content authenticity guarantees through fact-checking models and community co-governance mechanisms to combat false information, while algorithm optimization will differentiate professional from entertainment content, prioritizing high-liked professional answers.

AI Commercialization Pathways: Large model inference costs are extremely high, with current 15% penetration rate not fully covering R&D investment. Zhihu’s response is through model lightweighting (e.g., Huawei Ascend chip domestic alternatives) and user payment conversion optimization to cost structure, while exploring enterprise knowledge management services and vertical solutions as B-end monetization paths.

Creator Ecosystem Balance: AI-integrated answers may cause users to focus on content rather than creators’ personalities, weakening personal IP value, with some creators concerned about being “depersonalized”. Zhihu’s response is opening part of AI capabilities to top creators, encouraging them to develop customized tools, while strengthening creator personas through offline scenarios like live streaming and salt salons to avoid becoming AI data feed.

Intensified Competitive Pressure: Facing challenges from Kimi, Duaobao, etc., Zhihu needs to deepen its unique “professional knowledge traceability” mindset. Zhou Yuan stated, “AI will not replace the value of communities but will raise our product strategy ceiling. AI + community will undoubtedly be an important product direction.”

Sustainability and Future Outlook of Business Model

Zhihu’s business model is gradually maturing, with quarterly profitability achieved for the first time in Q4 2024, and continued profitability in Q1 2025 with adjusted net profit of 6.94 million yuan, gross margin increasing by 5.2 percentage points to 61.8%. As of the end of Q3 2025, Zhihu’s cash and equivalents, time deposits, restricted funds, and short-term investments totaled 4.58 billion yuan, providing sufficient financial support for future development.

However, Zhihu’s business model sustainability still faces challenges. In Q3 2025, Zhihu revenue declined by 22%, net loss expanded year-on-year, reflecting the difficulty of opening as a more challenging challenge. Zhou Yuan in the earnings call stated that 2025’s two priorities are: financially achieving significant profit reduction even approaching full-year profitability; and business-wise improving user experience, enhancing user engagement, and strengthening Zhihu’s reputation and credibility.

Zhihu’s future direction will increasingly focus on deep integration of AI technology with community ecology. Zhou Yuan believes that AI will not replace the value of communities but will raise product strategy ceilings. Zhihu will explore knowledge copyright derivative value through the “AI tools - content ecosystem - commercialization” flywheel. For example, Salt Talk Stories has cumulatively authorized over 90 works for short film adaptations, gradually developing into a high-quality script pool for emerging industries like short films and animated series.

In addition, Zhihu will further expand B-end service markets through enterprise knowledge management and industry solutions, achieving diversified monetization from C-end to B-end. Zhihu CFO Wang Han stated that the company will further strengthen commercial resilience, explore new revenue models, and focus on achieving sustainable, high-quality growth.

Overall, Zhihu’s business model is undergoing a transformation from content community to AI-driven knowledge service ecosystem.