Integrating Metered Paywalls with Subscription Management Systems

The paywall and subscription management system combination is a fantastic one. It allows content-based businesses to convert their valuable content into a source of revenue. Metered paywalls let users have a taste of your services, a taste that is enough to capture their interests, but not for satisfying them. The natural result? Users pay to unlock more of what they love.

And while your paywall is busy capturing customers, your subscription management system continuously converts them into subscribers. It ties their premium access with a subscription plan, bills them automatically, and creates a strong, ongoing relationship between them and your business.

Let’s zoom in how it works.

What Purpose Do Metered Paywalls Serve?

Metered paywalls are smart conversion tools that let consumers ‘try before they buy’. They fit the needs of businesses offering freemium services, such as magazines, journals, e-newspapers, lifestyle apps, and many more. Here’s what they do: letting customers access a limited content amount for free, and then prompting them to pay.

Basically, the metered paywall gate keeps unlimited content access, and the only way to bypass it is to subscribe. Suppose there’s a customer browsing a study resource website. They’ve just went through their third article, and about to access the fourth. But all of a sudden a paywall appears before them, restricting their access to the fourth article, and asking them to subscribe in order to proceed.

Because this paywall has sprung into action at a point where the customer engagement is at its peak, the customer is most likely to subscribe to get past it. That’s how metered paywalls do the trick. They prioritize user engagement before payment, so that customers pay happily after experiencing the service quality first-hand.

What Happens when Paywall and Subscription Management Software are Disconnected?

When paywalls are not in sync with subscription management software, or lack the support of this software completely, it leads to chaotic workflows. These are the resulting inefficiencies that businesses have to deal with:

It’s difficult tracking readers with free and paid access

Good subscription management software, like SubscriptionFlow, have built-in usage tracking capability. Without that, businesses cannot measure the number of articles their readers consume. Even if they make it possible by using third-party tools, it’s highly possible that the tracking isn’t real-time, or entirely accurate.

How this impacts the paywall strategy? It might prompt the paywall to appear too late or too early. In the former case, customers can easily access premium content for free for longer than they should. If such glitches continue, then customers might also figure out how to bypass the paywall without paying.

What’s more, it can cause friction for readers with paid access too. Suppose they have paid for a plan that allows them access to 50 articles per month. But their access is restricted after 30 articles only. Problems like these are common when the paywall is not in sync with a billing software that controls and manages customers’ access automatically.

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Billing might get delayed, or missed completely

When billing relies heavily on manual efforts, it can become error-prone fast. Errors include skipping customers’ charges, delaying access due to delayed invoices, and generating incorrect bills. All of these result in revenue leakage. If a business forgets to bill some of its readers, those readers might continue accessing the content for free.

Free to paid conversion is not frictionless

When there is no subscription management software at the backend, paid access cannot be given instantly. No integration between the paywall and billing system means no payment and access automation. When users sign up, businesses have to take their time activating their account.

Since the process is time-taking, customers might end up losing interest in the service, or find better alternatives. Their need for the content they desire isn’t fulfilled instantly, which can frustrate them, and can make the business lose potential revenue.

No data is available for enriching the gateway strategy

Paywalls alone don’t provide insights into reader behavior. Subscription management software is the one responsible for that. It offers intelligent analytics that show businesses how each of their customers interact with the paywall, at which point their engagement peaks, what their retention rate is, and so on.

This information is useful in optimizing the timing for paywalls, and providing individualized discounts.

The Magic of Integrating Metered Paywalls with Subscription Management Systems

When paywall and subscription management software are integrated, it unlocks seamless payment and access flows, and drives conversion. With this duo, businesses gain all of the following:

Reader access monitored in real-time

Since the subscription management software is directly linked with the paywall, it tracks all content access events. Meaning, it monitors how many articles each user accesses. When users reach their free-article limit, the paywall pops up, and they are immediately asked to subscribe.

This tracking takes place with precision, so that no customer can bypass their free service limit. It also ensures that each customer is asked to subscribe right when their free access ends, not earlier or later than that.

Automated sign ups, and instant access

When users hit the paywall, the paywall instantly gives them the sign-up option. If they choose to sign up, they are immediately redirected to plan selection, and then checkout. As soon as they pay, the paywall is lifted for them, and their paid entitlements are instantly activated.

All of this happens because there’s a subscription management software running in the background, ready to convert subscribers 24/7. Sign up processes don’t require manual input from the business, such as account activation verification or payment links.

Everything happens automatically, giving readers quick access to the content they need. There is no waiting period in between.

Smooth recurring billing

When visiting readers subscribe, their billing schedules and payment collection are automated. That is, they don’t have to complete payment forms anymore. Their subscription fees are processed automatically, and their permissions to access are updated in real-time as well.

Smart upsell opportunities

Content platforms can use their subscription management platform to execute intelligent upsell tactics. Let’s assume that one of your subscribers is on a plan in which they can access only 50 articles monthly.

As soon as their article limit hits, they are presented with another paywall encouraging them to upgrade to a higher plan with access to 100 articles. If this user hits their current plan’s limit frequently, and still doesn’t upgrade, a discount for the first few months could nudge them toward a higher tier.

In such scenarios, the subscription management software monitors the user behavior, offers users discounts especially made for them, and stimulates upsells.

Actionable paywall performance insights

Businesses can analyze how their paywalls perform, and how many conversions they bring in. They can view their customer engagement levels, and how their users interact with the paywall.

Does the paywall encourage more sign-ups or simply leads to website abandonment? Does the paywall work better tied to a free article limit, or to the number of scrolls within a single article? Businesses can experiment with their integration, and explore the answers to questions like these. This helps them make their paywall strategy more powerful.

Perks of Using Paywall with SubscriptionFlow

Implementing the paywall functionality with SubscriptionFlow offers you these added benefits:

Multiple billing models

Subscription plans don’t have to have rigid prices. Readers can be billed based on their usage too. So they can be offered plans like pay-per-article. These options are best for readers that don’t want to commit to fixed plans, like access to 50 articles per month, because they’re unsure of how much they will actually consume. With the pay-per-article model, they can subscribe with more confidence, and pay for only what they read.

Multiple gateway integration

SubscriptionFlow enables a variety of gateways for businesses, so that they can offer multiple payment options to their readers. Lack of preferred payment methods on the sign-up page can discourage conversions. So by displaying a range of payment options at the same time, businesses can cater to the preferences of a wider audience, including their international readers.

Reader segmentation

Inside SubscriptionFlow, you can leverage customer segmentation tools. Meaning, you can create several reader segments by plan type, engagement levels, renewal frequency, and so on. These segments can then be relied on to tailor marketing efforts for different customer groups, so that they can be offered right what they prefer.

Replace ad revenue with smart content monetization. Implement metered paywall with SubscriptionFlow, and start converting customers today.