How to Create a Paywall in WordPress

September 2. 2020

Are you so certain and confident that your website content is of high-quality? We are talking about the kind of quality that people pay money for. If you have no doubt in your mind that someone might pay a fee just to access your content, then you need to learn how to create a paywall in WordPress. After all, we here at WP Full Care know that the reason why you started your website in the first place was so that you could profit from it. Today, we’ll aim to show you how to do just that.

First things first – what is a paywall and why you might want one?

As briefly mentioned, a paywall is a feature that you can create on your website that will require your website visitors to pay a certain fee if they want to access your content. If you think about it, we are sure you will recall the times when you were browsing the Internet and came across this feature without knowing what it is. Usually, websites will let you access a limited amount of content for free, but if you want to get access to full content, you will have to agree to pay a monthly fee.

What websites oftentimes do is put premium content behind a paywall so that you will not be able to help yourself but pay for access. The premium content could be a highly-requested article or an article that’s important for your audience. And when you think about it, this type of approach leads to a win-win situation. You get regular profit from your most dedicated fans while also getting website visits from casual visitors. Talk about the perfect way to improve the experience of a user who is visiting your website for the first time.

So you have decided that creating a paywall for your WordPress website is the next step you want to take. Great! But what now? Believe it or not, what comes next is not as complicated as it seems.

How to create a paywall in WordPress in a few simple steps

For starters, before you can actually start making money from articles that are behind a paywall, you will need to have a paid WordPress plan. And the second thing you will need is an idea – an idea of how you want to collect your payments. Do you want to implement the pay per view model, where you will charge by the article? Or do you plan to opt for the subscription model where your visitors can get a monthly or annual access to all of your content? Only once all of that is cleared up can you start to take actual steps.

What you will need to use to create a paywall in WordPress is a membership plugin. Bear in mind that there are many different plugins that you can use for this purpose, such as WooCommerce. However, for the sake of this guide, we’ll be using MemberPress – an all-in-one plugin for WordPress. As always, the first step will be installing and activating the plugin. Once this part is done, here’s what you need to do.

Go to MemberPress > Settings > License page in order to enter your license key. If you don’t know where you can find this information, just visit your account on the MemberPress website. Copy the license key, paste it, and click on the Activate button. For what comes next, you’ll need to decide on the exact way you want to receive payments. Every plugin will support certain payment methods, and the good thing about MemberPess is that it supports several ones. Just to give you an idea, they include PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net. If you have started by using WooCommerce, then you’ll have to investigate which payment methods they support.

Adding a payment method

By going to the MemberPress > Settings page and switching to the Payments tab, you will be able to select a payment method. Just click on the + button and you will get to the point of providing a name for your payment method. Once you select your payment getaway from the dropdown menu, the plugin will prompt you to fill in the details. The details include your PayPal e-mail address and similar information.

And if you wish to add a couple of payment methods which certainly isn’t a bad idea, just repeat the process by clicking the + button. If you have successfully entered all the payment methods you wish to use, don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Options’ in order to save your changes.

How to create a subscription plan for your website

Now that the foundation has been set, you need to work on creating a subscription plan for your website. In order to do that, just visit the MemberPress > Membership page and click on the ‘Add New’ button. The next screen that pops up will require you to provide some important pieces of information, such as:

• Membership plan name
• The actual membership price

In the ‘Membership Options’ box, you have a chance to edit and personalize the plan. You can provide a description for a membership plan or you can simply go with the default settings. And once you get to the end of this process, don’t forget to click on the ‘Publish’ button. After this, all you will have to do is decide which content you want to hide behind a paywall. What website owners usually do is restrict content based on the membership plan. If someone chooses a Premium plan, it goes without saying that he or she will have full access to every piece of content on the website. And voila – you have managed to create a paywall in WordPress, along with everything that goes with it. Didn’t we tell you it wasn’t that difficult?