Not all paywalls are made the same. Some allow visitors to read a specific number of articles before they have to pay (i.e. the 'freemium' model), while others require a paid subscription to access any content. The type of paywall you choose will depend on your subscription model and overall content monetisation strategy.
If you want to learn more about paywalls and how they work, here's a pro-tip: Head over to our guide to starting a paywall. There you can learn more about what paywalls are, how they work, and the kinds of high-quality content you need to produce to be successful.
Here are the main differences between the main paywall models.
The metered paywall
A metered paywall or 'soft paywall' allows visitors to sample a certain number of articles each month before the paywall kicks in, and they have to pay to continue reading.
This type of paywall—which will be familiar to those who read articles on websites like The New York Times and Medium—allows readers to get a taste of the quality of content on offer without signing up for a subscription right away.
It's one of the best paywalls for companies that produce a lot of content and are happy to give away some free content while still earning revenue.
The dynamic paywall
A dynamic paywall is similar to a metered paywall, but with some basic differences.
It offers subscription variations, like asking readers to create an account to access a limited number of free articles or prompting them to sign up to a paid account to read content immediately.
These types of paywalls can also differ depending on where readers are. Slate, for example, introduced international paywalls in 2015 with different rules depending on what country the reader was accessing the site from.
The hard paywall
A hard paywall is a digital firewall: readers cannot penetrate it without paying for a subscription.
You'll see this type of paywall attached to newspapers like The Times, The Wall Street Journal, or Financial Times. Typically, these publications already have a base of long-term readers willing to pay for online access to content.
The membership model
The membership model is a good choice if you don't want a paywall, but you still need to generate revenue from your content.
The membership model uses an ‘ask’ at the bottom of each story to spur sign-ups, and the more content a person reads, the more intense the ‘ask’ becomes. But it remains just that: an ask, and readers can still read all major content pieces for free.
You'll see this type of paywall if you read publications like The Guardian, which has used the model to turn a £227 million operating loss into a small profit.
Other publications that use memberships often combine them with other models. When New Zealand’s Stuff implemented its membership model, it also combined it with native advertising and sponsored content to drive revenue.
Now that you know the different types of paywalls you can use to monetise your content, let’s take a look at which tool is best to help you do it 👇
