Paywall

Charge for access to pages on your site from the Paywall page. You connect your own Stripe account, add the prices you want to sell, and set the pages they open to Paid (Stripe). Visitors pay on Stripe Checkout and are signed in as soon as the payment goes through.

Paid memberships are part of the Pro plan and above, and of the 14-day free trial. We take no cut of your sales, so only Stripe's own fees apply.

Before you start

• A Stripe account. Payments go straight to it, and it is free to create at stripe.com.

• At least one product with an active price in Stripe. A price can be one-time or a recurring subscription.

• An access group for your paying members, for example "Paid members". Create it on the Access Groups page.

Stripe is the only payment processor we support. Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy cannot be connected.

Connect Stripe

Each site has its own Stripe connection, and you can connect the same Stripe account to several sites.

1. From your site dashboard, open Paywall in the sidebar.

2. Click Connect Stripe.

3. Sign in to Stripe and approve the connection.

Stripe sends you back to the Paywall page, which now shows an Offerings list.

Add an offering

An offering links one Stripe price to the access groups a buyer joins. Add one offering for each price you sell, for example a monthly and a yearly subscription that grant the same group.

1. On the Paywall page, click Add Offering.

2. Under Stripe price, select a price. The list holds the active prices of your connected Stripe account.

3. Under Grant access groups, select the groups the buyer joins.

4. Click Add Offering.

Offerings go live as soon as you add or remove them.

Put pages behind the paywall

A page asks for payment once its access control is Paid (Stripe) and you have published the change. Child pages follow their parent unless you override them, so one parent page can cover a whole section.

1. Open Access Control in the sidebar.

2. Click the Access Control cell of the page you want to sell.

3. Select Paid (Stripe).

4. Select the access group your offering grants.

5. Click Publish at the top of the dashboard.

What visitors see

A visitor without access sees your paywall page instead of the content. It lists each offering with its price, and a Buy button for a one-time price or a Subscribe button for a subscription.

1. The visitor clicks Buy or Subscribe.

2. They enter their email and payment details on Stripe Checkout.

3. They return to the page they were trying to open, signed in.

We also email them a purchase confirmation. Its button signs them in to the site and works for 24 hours; after that, they sign in with the Already a member? form. Every buyer appears in your member list with the access groups of the offering they bought.

How paying members sign in again

Paying members sign in with their email from the Already a member? form on the paywall page. We email them a sign-in link and a 6-digit sign-in code, and either one signs them in without charging them again. Someone who has not paid gets no email and has to buy first.

When a subscription ends

We remove a member from the groups an offering granted when their subscription is cancelled or becomes unpaid in Stripe.

• A single failed payment does not remove access. Stripe retries it, and access goes only if the subscription ends up cancelled or unpaid.

• Pausing a subscription in Stripe does not remove access either. To end a member's access, cancel their subscription in Stripe, or turn off Paid under Edit member on the Members page.

• A member who loses access keeps it until their current session ends, which is 24 hours by default. Change the session length on the Login Page.

• One-time purchases do not expire.

• A member you have blocked stays blocked, even if they pay again.

Let members manage their subscription

Members with a subscription can cancel it, change their card and see their invoices from your site. They open the profile menu at the top right of any page and choose Manage subscription, which opens Stripe's customer portal for their subscription. A link there brings them back to the page they were on, and they don't sign in again.

The menu item appears only for members who bought a subscription, and only once your Stripe customer portal is set up:

1. On the Paywall page, find Members manage their subscription. It shows On when members can manage their subscription.

2. If it shows Off, click Stripe portal settings.

3. In Stripe, choose what members can do, for example cancel at the end of the billing period and update their payment method, then save.

The menu item appears within about ten minutes. The portal uses the branding and public business details of your Stripe account, which you set in Stripe.

When a member cancels, Stripe tells us and we remove their access the same way as for any subscription that ends. If they cancel at the end of the billing period, they keep access until the period they paid for runs out.

Members who bought a one-time price have nothing to manage and don't see the item. Neither do members you added or imported yourself, because we don't hold their subscription. Cancel those in your Stripe Dashboard.

Change the paywall page text

The paywall page uses your site's logo and brand colour. Three fields below your offerings on the Paywall page set its text:

• Heading

• Subheading

• Member login button, the button on the Already a member? form

Ask buyers to accept your terms

Require a tick-box on our checkout when buyers must accept your terms before they pay, for example when UK buyers of digital content must agree to immediate access. Your Stripe account needs a terms of service URL first, set in the Stripe Dashboard under Settings, Public details. Without one, Stripe can't show the tick-box.

1. On the Paywall page, find Checkout terms.

2. Turn on Require buyers to accept your terms.

3. Optionally, write your own wording under Checkbox text. Left empty, Stripe's wording is used, with a link to your terms. Your own text replaces that link, so add one with Markdown, for example [terms](https://…).

4. Click Save.

The tick-box appears from the next checkout, without publishing.

Sell through your own Stripe Payment Link

Sell an offering through a Payment Link you made in Stripe when you want Stripe Managed Payments: Stripe becomes the seller of record for your digital product and handles sales tax and VAT. Stripe offers Managed Payments only on your own checkouts and links, not on checkouts that a connected service like Sotion creates. Buyers still join the offering's access groups and are signed in straight after paying.

You need the offering on the Paywall page first, and a live Payment Link in the Stripe account connected to this site.

1. In Stripe, create a Payment Link that sells only your offering's price. Use the exact price you picked for the offering, not another price for the same amount: access is given by price, so a sale of any other price gives the buyer nothing.

2. On the Paywall page, click Payment Link next to the offering.

3. Under After payment, click Copy.

4. In Stripe, open the Payment Link's After payment settings, choose Don't show confirmation page and paste the address. Leave {CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID} exactly as it is; Stripe fills it in.

5. Back in Sotion, paste your Payment Link's address under Payment Link address, for example https://buy.stripe.com/…, and click Save.

We check the link with Stripe when you save. From then on, the offering's Buy or Subscribe button opens your Payment Link instead of our checkout. To switch back, open Payment Link again and click Use Sotion's checkout.

What buyers see

1. The buyer clicks Buy or Subscribe on your paywall and pays on your Payment Link. If they are already signed in to your site, their email is filled in.

2. Stripe sends them back to the page they were trying to open, signed in.

3. We email them a purchase confirmation, as for any purchase.

A buyer who pays with the email of an existing member isn't signed in straight away, unless they are already signed in as that member. The page says the payment was received, and they sign in from the email we send to that address. This stops anyone from getting into someone else's account by typing their email address at checkout.

You can also share the Payment Link anywhere else, for example in an email or a social post. We add the buyer as a paid member the same way and email them the purchase confirmation.

With Managed Payments:

• Buyers can manage or cancel their subscription at link.com. When it is cancelled there, we remove access as usual.

• Stripe answers buyers' payment questions and can refund them within 60 days, in some cases without asking you first. A refund doesn't remove access, so remove the member on the Members page.

The Checkout terms setting applies only to our checkout. Set terms for your Payment Link in Stripe.

Disconnect Stripe

Disconnect when you stop selling on a site or want to connect a different Stripe account. Open Integrations in the sidebar, click Disconnect Stripe and confirm.

Visitors can no longer buy until you reconnect. Members keep the access they already have. While Stripe is disconnected we are not told when a subscription is cancelled, so remove those members yourself.

Troubleshooting

Related articles

• Access Control: choose who can open each page

• Access Groups: create the groups your offerings grant

• Understanding your plan: what each plan includes