What is a paywall?
Monetizing your digital publication requires a crucial decision: Should I set up a paywall?
Broadly described, paywalls are used to gate access to content in exchange for payment. Paywalls are popular revenue-generating tools used by news publishers, magazine publishers, content creators, and more.
The concept of paywalls has been around since the mid-1990s. They were seen as a way for newspapers to offer premium content to subscribers who paid for access.
In recent years, paywalls have been adopted by other industries, such as software, music, and video streaming services. These services typically offer different levels of access to content, with higher levels requiring a paid subscription. This allows businesses to monetize their content while also offering customers an easy way to access the content they want.
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
- Soft paywall
- Metered 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.
A soft paywall may allow some free content and restrict other content that requires a paid plan.
Generally with soft 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 charge extra to send content earlier to your inbox via a newsletter. Another example could include an ad free plan to paid subscribers.
A hybrid paywall may include a mixture of the above strategies.
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
Create valuable content. If your content has value whether it saves someone time or provides important data/information that they need, this will help convert readers to paid.
Make your pricing as simple as possible. Offer fewer options to prevent your readers from becoming overwhelmed during the signup process. It should be fast and easy to signup. Your rates per month and per year will vary based on your market. A local newspaper in a town of 15,000 people might charge between $7 and $15 per month whereas a national publication might charge less since their market is larger. Research similar publications with similar market sizes to help figure out a starting point. Pricing can always be adjusted down the road. Experiment!
Subscribing to your publication should be easy. Limit data fields that are required. If additional fields like a billing/shipping address aren’t necessary, don’t ask for it. Keep your fields limited and make signing up as simple as possible.
To reduce friction in the signup process, consider offering a free registration-type plan with limited required fields that don’t require a credit card to get started. This plan should give limited access to your content and automatically add them 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.
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 $299/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. Accelerate.pub
Paywall type: Dynamic
Software type: WordPress native
Features: WordPress CMS, Managed Hosting, hard paywall, soft paywall, metered paywall, freemium model, hybrid paywall
Pricing: Starts at $199/mo +5% revenue share. No setup fee
Best fit: Content creators that need a service that handles all the tech
Looking for a turnkey WordPress based solution? Accelerate is a new offering from Leaky Paywall that sets up or migrates your existing website into a fully managed platform. The platform is still 100% WordPress and open source and is charged month to month. Check it out here.
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.
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!
