Set Up a Paywall

Overview

A paywall shows the start of an article and asks readers to subscribe to read the rest. In UniSignIn it's made of three parts:

• a plan readers buy through Stripe
• an Access Wall that cuts the article and shows the plans
• an Orchestration that shows the wall on your premium articles

Readers pay in a checkout window without leaving the article, and the article unlocks as soon as they have paid. Subscribers never see the wall.

Steps

1. Connect Stripe: see Stripe.

2. Create your plans: in Commerce > Products, create a subscription product and add one or more plans, e.g. monthly and yearly. See Commerce.

3. Create the Access Wall: in Audience Operation > Experience, click New Experience, choose Access Wall and start from the Subscription wall template.

   • Article container: the CSS selector of your article body, e.g. .article-content.
   • Paragraphs shown: how much of the article readers see first.
   • Plans offered: pick up to 3 plans, and a Highlighted plan to mark as the best value.
   • Write the headline and text, and set the colours to match your site.

4. Show it on premium articles: in Audience Operation > Orchestration, create an Orchestration:

   • Context: your premium pages, e.g. a URL path or a data layer value your CMS sets on premium articles.
   • Deliver Experience: the Access Wall.

5. Let readers manage their subscription: in the Account Center, turn on subscriptions so subscribers can change plan or cancel.

Metered paywall

A metered paywall lets readers open a number of free articles, then shows the plans.

1. In the Access Wall, set Access to Metered, or start from the Metered wall template.
2. Set Free articles to 5 and Per to Month. Readers open 5 articles a month for free, and see the plans from the 6th.
3. Turn on Articles left banner to tell readers how many free articles they have left.

To ask for a free account first, set Mode to Sign up, then subscribe and choose Extra free articles after signing up. Readers who sign up get a few more articles before the plans show, and you learn who they are.

Hard paywall with protected text

With the settings above, the full article is still in the page and the wall hides it. To keep premium text off the page completely, set Withhold the text on the server to Yes and follow Protected Content. Your site then sends only the preview, and subscribers' browsers fetch the rest from your server.

Dynamic paywall

Show different walls to different readers by giving each one its own Orchestration, for example:

• a stricter meter, 2 articles a month, for readers who arrive from search or social: Last Referrer contains your search or social domains
• a softer one, 10 articles a month, for loyal readers: Active days (last 30 days) greater than or equal to 10
• a sign-up wall for anonymous readers first, and the paywall for registered readers who don't pay

For walls that depend on what a reader does on the page, such as showing the plans when they scroll halfway through their third article of the week, use an on-page Journey. To find out which wall works best, A/B test two paywalls.