Use the Paid Content block on your website to accept one-time, monthly, or annual payments for access to exclusive content that you create—video, images, text, or anything else. Engage your audience with exclusive content while earning money to support your website.
In this guide
The Paid Content block (formerly known as the Premium Content block) allows you to restrict content on a page or post to paying subscribers only. You can display any kind of content for only paid subscribers to see.
Visitors see options to subscribe or log in when attempting to view the paid content:
You can use this block as a paywall to share your content only with paying subscribers. Add subscriber-only videos, cheat sheets, and other goodies to an exclusive section of your site.
The Paid Content block uses Payments to manage subscriptions.
In this video, we demonstrate how to create blog content for paying members only using the Paid Content block (formerly known as the Premium Content block):
The Paid Content Block can’t be added through the Jetpack app yet. You can use a browser on your mobile device or a desktop computer to add this block to posts or pages:
To add the Paid Content block, click the + Block Inserter icon and search for “Paid Content”.
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Using your keyboard, you can also type /paid on a new line and press enter to quickly add a new Paid Content block.
For more information, visit our detailed instructions on adding blocks.
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For plugin-enabled sites, the WordPress.com Editing Toolkit plugin must be active for the Paid Content block. If you can’t find this block, go to Plugins → Installed Plugins to ensure that the WordPress.com Editing Toolkit plugin is active.
If this is your first time using any WordPress.com payment features, we’ll prompt you to connect your WordPress.com account to Stripe — the payment processor used to collect your funds. Click the Connect button, and you’ll be directed to Stripe to continue:
With Stripe, you can create an account or sign in to an existing one. Any money you earn using WordPress.com Payments will go into your Stripe account. WordPress.com never has any access to the money you earn. From your Stripe account, you can move your earnings to the personal bank account of your choice.
Supported Countries and Currencies (click to reveal)
To start accepting payments using a Stripe account, you must be a citizen or own a company in one of the countries where Stripe is available for business. We officially support the countries listed below.
Your customers can pay using a credit card issued anywhere in the world.
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Canada
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hong Kong
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malaysia
- Malta
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
The Paid Content block toolbar has four components explained below:
After adding the Paid Content block, take the following steps:
- Add a Subscription.
- Add the content your subscribers and guests will see.
- Publish the page or post.
These steps are outlined in detail below.
First, create a subscription plan for your readers to purchase. You’ll choose a name, price, and renewal interval:
- Click the list of subscriptions in the block’s toolbar and choose “Add a new subscription” from the drop-down. Or, use the block’s sidebar settings to create a new subscription.
- Give the subscription a name, set the currency, price, and how often you want the subscription to renew (monthly, yearly, or a one-off payment.)
- Toggle on or off if the subscription is a donation and if you want to enable your customers to choose to pay their own amount.
- Click the “Add subscription” button.
Make sure a subscription is selected for your Paid Content block. Otherwise, your visitors will not see a “Subscribe” button when they view your content.
You can add multiple subscription levels. For example, you can add bronze, silver, and gold tiers with increasing benefits for each one. Remember that a single Paid Content block can have just one subscription selected, so you would insert three Paid Content blocks in this scenario, one for each payment plan/subscription level.
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Transactions using this block do not account for taxes or shipping and will only charge the amount specified. When setting up the block, you can include this in the transaction amount if you wish to capture taxes or shipping in addition to the price.
This is where you will add the content your subscribers are paying for. You can place text, images, and any other content.
Follow these steps to add subscriber content:
- Open the List View sidebar to simplify adding the subscriber content.
- Click the first block in the “Subscriber View” section.
- Edit and add any content you want to appear for subscribers only.
Blocks nested under the “Subscriber View” in the List View will show for subscribers of that paid plan only.
If you have added other administrators or editors to your site, they can access the paid content without a subscription because they can edit the content on the site.
Visitors without access to the subscription will see what you add to the “Guest View” section. You can use this area to showcase a teaser of your paid content and explain the benefits of subscribing.
Follow these steps to add subscriber content:
- Open the List View sidebar to simplify adding the subscriber content.
- Click the first block in the “Guest View” section.
- Edit and add any content you want to appear for visitors who have not subscribed yet.
Blocks nested under the “Guest View” in the List View will show for visitors without access to the paid content.
By default, you should see the Premium Content buttons block in the “Guest View”. These buttons allow your visitors to subscribe to the content or log into their account if they’re already subscribed.
When your content is ready to go, publish the post or page. As the site owner, you see the subscriber-only content on your site. To see how the post or page looks for non-subscribers, visit the page using a browser where you are not logged into your WordPress.com account (like a private or incognito browser window).
Once you get paid subscribers, you can manage their subscriptions and monitor your revenue by following these steps:
- Visit your site’s dashboard.
- Navigate to Tools → Monetize (or Jetpack → Monetize if using WP-Admin).
Visit our Payments Management guide to learn more.
If you import subscribers and you to give them access to paid content, you can follow these steps:
- Import a list of your subscribers by visiting Users → Subscribers (or Hosting → Subscribers if using WP-Admin).
- Click on the “Add subscribers” button in the top right corner.
- Click the “upload a CSV” link to upload a list of your subscribers.
- Send your subscribers a link to your new paid content and encourage them to purchase a new subscription.
Importing your paid subscribers from another platform only imports their email addresses. For security reasons, no payment information is imported with them. You can send them an email that includes a link to a paid newsletter or a page with paid content so they can securely enter their payment information. Learn more about managing paid subscriptions
Fees for payments are based on the WordPress.com or Jetpack plan you have and are calculated as a percentage of your revenue:
| WordPress.com Plan | Related Fees |
|---|---|
| WordPress.com Commerce | 0 |
| WordPress.com Business | 2% |
| WordPress.com Premium | 4% |
| WordPress.com Personal | 8% |
| WordPress.com Pro (Legacy) | 2% |
| WordPress.com Starter (Legacy) | 3% |
| WordPress.com Free | 10% |
| Jetpack Plan | Related Fees |
|---|---|
| Security and Complete | 2% |
| Security Daily | 4% |
| Jetpack free | 10% |
| Woo Express Plan | Related Fees |
|---|---|
| Essential | 0 |
| Performance | 0 |
In addition to the fees listed above, Stripe collects 2.9% + US$0.30 for each payment made to your Stripe account. Not in the USA? Check Stripe’s fees in your currency.
This system allows you to offer Payments with minimal upfront investment. As you collect more supporters, it may make sense to move to a higher plan to retain more revenue.
Note that if your WordPress.com or Jetpack plan expires, the fee associated with your plan will increase to 10%. The Stripe fee will be unaffected.
Is all the content in the block restricted?
Only the HTML content is currently blocked. Non-subscribers can access files, videos, or images with a known direct link.
Are subscribers added as users to my site?
Subscribers are authenticated with WordPress.com, and site owners can see and export the list of subscribers from Tools → Monetize → Supporters (or Jetpack → Monetize → Supporters if using WP-Admin).
They will also appear under Users → Subscribers as paid subscribers. However, these users do not have team access to your back-end tools.
WordPress.com Secure Sign On (SSO)
If you have a plugin-enabled site, the WordPress.com Secure Sign On (SSO) feature will need to be enabled for the Paid Content block to work as expected.
You can access this setting under Settings → Security. The setting “Allow users to log in to this site using WordPress.com accounts” should be turned on.
