How to Create a Paywall in WordPress (Hard, Soft and Metered)

A paywall is the moment of truth on a content site. A reader has found your article, read the opening, and now has to decide whether you are worth paying for. A good paywall makes that decision easy. A bad one, usually a grey box saying “This content is restricted”, sends people straight back to Google.

This guide explains the three types of paywall, which one suits your site, and how to create a paywall in WordPress that shows a teaser, blurs the rest and turns readers into members. We will also be honest about what each approach is not good at.

Key takeaways

A paywall is a barrier that limits access to content until a visitor pays or subscribes. On a WordPress site it usually shows part of an article, then a message with a button to join. Members who are logged in see the full article; everyone else sees the teaser and the offer.

Everything is locked; visitors see only a teaser or a sales page. It converts the highest share of visitors who arrive, but fewer people arrive, because there is little to find in search and little to share. It works when you have a reputation or very specific expertise people already want.

Most content is free; premium pieces are locked. Free articles bring search traffic and build trust; premium ones convert the readers who want more. This is the best fit for most blogs, newsletters and niche publishers.

Visitors get a set number of full articles free each month, then hit the wall. It suits publishers with lots of fresh content and frequent visitors, like news sites. It needs a way to count views per visitor, usually with a cookie, which can be fiddly with page caching.

The teaser deserves special attention. Do not cut the article mid-sentence after an intro that says nothing. Write the opening so it delivers something useful on its own, then the paywall appears right when the reader wants the next part. Around 40–60 words, one or two short paragraphs, is a good default.

With FlexWoo Memberships on WooCommerce, the paywall is part of content restriction. Here is the full setup.

Create a plan under FW Memberships → Memberships → Membership Plans, and link it to a subscription product so readers can pay monthly or yearly. See how to create a membership site with WooCommerce for the details.

Create a “Premium” category and unlock it in the plan. Every post you publish in that category is now behind the paywall, and everything else stays free.

Go to FW Memberships → Content Restriction → Restriction Rules and choose Show Paywall & Teaser for posts.

Open Content Restriction → Paywall & Teasers. A live preview shows the card as a logged-out visitor would see it, on desktop and mobile. Set:

Choose how many words non-members see above the card, anywhere from 0 to 300. The blurred area below is made of placeholder lines, so the rest of the post is never sent to the browser. That matters: some paywalls only hide the text with CSS, and anyone can read it by viewing the page source.

On the same screen, decide whether search engines may index protected posts and whether RSS feeds hide them.

Plan note: the paywall card design and teaser are FlexWoo Memberships Pro features. The free plugin can protect content with a redirect or alternative text.

For a hard paywall, unlock all posts (or all pages in your members area) in the plan, and choose a redirect to your pricing page for non-members. Keep one or two free sample pieces outside the plan so visitors can judge your work before buying.

To be straightforward: FlexWoo Memberships does not include a metered “X free articles a month” counter. If metering is central to your model, look at a dedicated paywall plugin built for publishers. For most small and medium sites, a soft paywall on premium content converts well without the complexity of counting views.

A soft paywall and SEO get along fine. Free articles rank as usual. For premium articles, you can let search engines index the teaser so people can still find the page. If you show Google more than visitors see, mark the locked part with Google’s paywalled content structured data, so it is not mistaken for cloaking.

The same idea works beyond articles. With Pro you can lock a section inside any page with the Member Locked Content block or the [flexwoo_locked] shortcode, show a designed content block (a pricing table, a video) instead of a plain message, or lock downloads. Our main guide to restricting content in WordPress covers every option.

The best paywalls feel like an invitation, not a slammed door. Give readers a genuinely useful opening, show them there is more, and make joining one click away. Start with a soft paywall on your best content, watch which posts convert, and write more like those.