What is a paywall?
Monetizing your publication requires a decision: Should I set up a paywall?
Broadly described, paywalls are used to gate access to valuable content in exchange for payment. Paywalls are growing more popular to generate revenue for news and magazine publishers as well as independent content creators.
Early paywalls have been around since the early 2000s. They were seen as a way for publishers to offer premium content to subscribers who paid for access.
Today’s paywalls let publishers gate their content in more flexible ways, the best of them are set up to grow both audience and revenue. Here is a case study of a publisher that set up their paywall to grow their website traffic as well as paid subscriptions.
Why use a WordPress Paywall?
WordPress paywalls can help generate revenue from online content, control access to premium content, and attract new free and paid subscribers.
With a decades-long decline in ad revenue for news publishers, paywalls have become an important tool in generating new recurring revenue from readers. Digital publishers are increasingly seeing paid digital subscriptions make up larger shares of their overall revenue streams and in some cases surpassing ad revenue altogether.
There are a myriad of WordPress paywall types:
- Hard paywall
- Metered/soft paywall
- Freemium model
- Hybrid paywall
A hard paywall prevents viewers from seeing any content until they pay. An example of a publisher that generally runs a hard paywall is the Wall Street Journal. Generally with hard paywalls the publisher decides what is free and what is not.
A metered paywall allows for a certain number of free articles before being required to sign up or pay. A metered paywall gives more control to your reader allowing them to decide what they want to read for free.
A freemium model paywall may include free content but charges extra to gain these example benefits:
- Local news publisher sending an afternoon newsletter only to paid subscribers
- Sending full text to the readers inbox so they can enjoy the full content without having to click away
- Include an ad free plan to paid subscribers.
A hybrid paywall may include a mixture of the above strategies. Magazine publishers may meter or lock down their issue articles, leave their daily news articles open, and make sure their sponsored content is free.
Let’s talk paywalls
Want to learn more about growing your audience and subscriptions with your paywall? Get in touch with Pete.
Best Practices for Implementing a WordPress Paywall
Here is our #1 recommendation: To grow your audience and reduce friction in the signup process, offer a free registration plan (see the case study). This plan should give limited access to your content and automatically add the reader to your newsletter. When the time is right, offer an option to upgrade to a paid plan. At this point, since your free reader is already logged in with an account, it’s only a matter of providing a credit card, greatly reducing the friction of checkout.
Offer fewer subscriptions options to prevent your readers from becoming overwhelmed during the signup process. The highest conversions come from offering only 1 subscription plan (see a good example). This reduces the decision making laod for potential subscribers.
Looking for revenue inspiration? Here are 18 tactics that we have proven to grow your email list and convert paying subscribers.
The List: Top 7 WordPress paywall plugins
In the WordPress ecosystem, there are dozens of paywall plugins that allow you to gate access to content. Most WordPress paywall plugins integrate with payment processors like Stripe and use simple webhooks in order to automatically update access for subscribers in your WordPress user table. The vast majority of these plugins are hard paywall type setups. Here are some WordPress paywall plugin options:
1. Leaky Paywall
Paywall type: Dynamic
Software type: WordPress native
Features: Hard paywall, soft paywall, metered paywall, freemium model, hybrid paywall
Pricing: Starting at $199/mo + no revenue share (free core version available in WordPress repository)
Best fit: Medium to large news and magazine publishers
Leaky Paywall’s focus is on engaging publisher audiences and serving up a seamless subscription experience to grow revenue. It offers many ways to monetize content. Leaky Paywall is built natively for WordPress so all subscriber data lives on-site and uses the publisher’s payment gateway of choice. It integrates with many CRMs, circulation software, and many other CRMs and other WordPress plugins. Highly customizable but a WordPress developer is recommended to unlock its potential.
Want to learn more? Get in touch
Let’s talk paywalls
Want to learn more about growing your audience and subscriptions with your paywall? Get in touch with Pete.
2. Memberpress
Paywall type: Metered
Software type: WordPress native
Features: hard paywall, cookie-based metered paywall
Pricing: starting at $359/yr
Best fit: Membership site, bloggers, and content creators
MemberPress is a WordPress membership/paywall plugin that makes it easy to create membership sites, accept credit cards, control who sees your content, and sell digital downloads & products. It features content dripping, membership levels, user registration & profiles, coupons & discounts, autoresponders, and more.
3. Restrict Content Pro
Paywall type: Metered
Software type: WordPress native
Features: hard paywall, cookie-based metered paywall
Pricing: starting at $99/yr
Best fit: Membership site, bloggers, and content creators
Restrict Content Pro is a WordPress paywall plugin that allows you to easily create and manage a membership site. It features membership levels, content restriction, user registration & profiles, recurring payments, multiple payment gateways, and more.
4. Paid Memberships Pro
Paywall type: Metered
Software type: WordPress native
Features: hard paywall, cookie-based metered paywall
Features: Print management, incognito browser blocking, pay-per-view
Pricing: $247/yr
Best fit: Membership site, bloggers, podcasters, and content creators
Paid Memberships Pro is a WordPress membership/paywall plugin that allows you to accept payments, manage members, and protect content. It features membership levels, recurring payments, multiple payment gateways, content dripping, user registration & profiles, and more.
5. WooCommerce Memberships
Paywall type: Hard
Software type: WordPress native
Features: hard paywall
Pricing: $199/yr
Best fit: Membership site, bloggers, podcasters, and content creators
WooCommerce Memberships is a WordPress membership/paywall plugin that allows you to easily create and manage memberships. It features membership levels, content restriction, user registration & profiles, recurring payments, and more.
6. S2 Member
Paywall type: Metered
Software type: WordPress native
Features: hard paywall, cookie-based metered paywall
Pricing: Custom
Best fit: Membership site, bloggers, podcasters, and content creators
S2 Member is a WordPress membership/paywall plugin that allows you to easily create and manage a membership site. It features membership levels, content restriction, user registration
7. Paywall Project
Paywall type: Dynamic
Software type: WordPress native
Features: WordPress CMS, Managed Hosting, subscription and email newsletter system
Pricing: Starts at $499/mo
Best fit: Content creators that need a service that handles all the tech
Looking for a turnkey WordPress based solution? Paywall Project sets up or migrates your existing website into a fully managed platform. The platform is still 100% WordPress and open source.
How to setup a WordPress paywall for free
While logged in to your WordPress site, install the Leaky Paywall plugin from the WordPress repository for free. Note: this core version is free and allows you to set up 1 non-recurring subscription level with Stripe or PayPal payments.
Next, navigate over to Leaky Paywall -> Settings -> General -> Pages. From here, you will create a new page that includes the corresponding shortcode.
Choose your general restrictions for all non-logged in visitors. We recommend 1-3 free articles for free every month before your readers are required to register.
Create a subscription level that will give additional access once readers sign up. We recommend a free registration plan that gives 1-3 articles free each month and at least 1 paid option that offers unlimited views of all content.
Set up your Stripe account and include your Live Publishable Key and Live Secret Key. Make sure to setup a webhook with Stripe if you plan on offering recurring plans (see step 9 here).
Don’t forget to set up your Email Settings and be sure to edit the New Subscriber Email to fit your publication.
Conclusion
Choosing the right paywall is crucial as it can determine the success of monetizing content and building a sustainable revenue stream. Paywalls can come in different forms such as hard, metered, and freemium paywalls, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Paywall software can help generate revenue, build a community, protect content, and gather valuable data and insights. Ultimately, the right paywall strategy can help take a business to the next level by turning visitors into subscribers and building a stronger revenue stream. Contact Pete today if you want to discuss your approach—he’s always happy to see if he can help!
