Paid Content Block

The Paid Content Block lets you monetize your site by accepting various payment plans for exclusive access to content you create, visible only to paying subscribers.

The Paid Content block allows you to accept one-time, monthly, or annual payments on your website for access to exclusive content that you create – video, images, text, or anything at all. Engage your audience with exclusive content while earning money to support your website​.

This block allows you to restrict content on a page or post to paying subscribers only. Visitors see options to subscribe or log in when attempting to view the paid content​​. It uses Payments to manage subscriptions​.

Requirements

The Paid Contact Block is available on all connected sites. It is a part of the Jetpack Blocks suite and is activated by default. It does not require a paid upgrade to use. See our Jetpack Blocks article to learn about the available blocks and how to activate them.

You will need to have a Stripe account. The account holder, either a citizen or a company, must be based in one of the countries where Stripe is available for business.

Adding the Paid Content Block

You can add the Paid Content block by searching for “payments” or “paid” after clicking on the + Block Inserter icon. Using your keyboard, you can also type /payments or /paid on a new line and press Enter to add the block.

See Jetpack Blocks for detailed instructions on adding blocks.

Connecting Stripe to Accept Payments

If this is your first time setting up our Payments feature, we’ll prompt you to connect your WordPress.com account to Stripe — the payment processor used to accept payments for your content.

To connect Stripe following the prompt, follow these steps:

1. Click Connect. This will take you to Stripe to continue.
2. While on Stripe, follow the prompts to log in or register.
3. After signing in, Stripe will prompt you to select the account you want to connect or if you want to create a new account.
4. Select an account to connect Stripe to your site.

Any money you earn will go into your Stripe account. Jetpack never has any access to the money you earn. We only charge transaction fees. From there, you can move it to the personal bank account of your choice.

To start accepting payments using Stripe, note that you must be a citizen or own a company in one of the countries where Stripe is available for business. Your customers can pay using a credit card issued anywhere in the world.

Using the Paid Content Block Toolbar

Select the Paid Content block to see the toolbar. The Paid Content block toolbar has four components:

1. The subscription required to view the content you’re adding it to. This is indicated by an icon with two arrows on it.
2. Subscriber view: Select this tab to add the content for subscribers to see.
3. Guest view: Select this tab to add a prompt or a preview of the content that non-paying subscribers can see.
4. The editable content area to add subscriber and guest content, depending on the tab chosen in the previous step.

If the cursor leaves the Paid Content block, the toolbar and View selector may not be visible. Clicking on the Paid Content block again should bring it back, allowing you to interact with the toolbar. You can also use the Block Editor List View to select the appropriate part of the block.

Adding Paid Content

Once you have added the Paid Content block and connected Stripe, you can proceed to add your paid content.

Creating a Subscription or Payment Plan

Start by creating a subscription plan for your paid content. The plan can be for payments that happen once, every month, or every year. Choose a name, price, and renewal interval:

1. Select the Paid Content block to see the block toolbar mentioned above.
2. Click the icon with two arrows on it labelled “Select a subscription” to select from existing subscriptions or add a new subscription.
3. Choose “Add a new subscription” to create a new plan. You can also go directly to the Block sidebar settings to add the new subscription.
4. Choose and enter a name for the subscription, set the currency, price and subscription interval (how often the subscriber will be charged the set amount: monthly, yearly, or a one-off payment).
5. Use the toggles to specify if you want the subscription to be a donation and if you want to allow your customers to choose the amount they want to pay to support your work.
6. Click Add subscription.

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.

Adding Subscriber Content

To add subscriber-only content, click the Subscriber View tab from the block toolbar. The view that shows up is where you’ll add premium content for your paying subscribers. You can add text, images, and any exclusive content you want.

Subscriber content should be strictly nested under the Subscriber View for the subscriber-only restriction to work as expected. To ensure your content is where it should be, you can use the List View as shown below:

Customizing the Guest View

Click on the Guest View tab either on the Paid Content block toolbar or from the List View mentioned above. Content here will be visible to non-paying readers who haven’t subscribed for the premium content.

You can use this space to give people a sneak peek of your exclusive content and tell them why they should subscribe. This preview or teaser is seen by readers who haven’t subscribed yet. But as soon as someone becomes a paying customer, they won’t see this anymore.

Publishing Your Paid Content

Once your content is all set, go ahead and publish the post or page to make it public on your website. As the person in charge of the website, you can see the paid content on your site. To view the post or page as a non-subscriber, you can open it using an incognito browser window.

If only the Log in button shows when you view the post or page as a non-paying guest, and no Subscribe button, make sure you have created and selected a subscription for the paid content from the block’s toolbar as described above.

Only paying subscribers can view the content you place in the Subscriber View. Remember that if you have added other administrators or editors to your site, like you, they have access to the paid content without a subscription because of their ability to edit site content.

Note, too, that only the HTML content is currently blocked. Non-subscribers can access files, videos, or images if they have a direct link to the resource.

Managing Plans, Subscribers and Earnings

You can manage your subscriptions, see paying subscribers (referred to as Supporters), and monitor your revenue by:

1. Select the Paid Content block.
2. Go to the Block sidebar settings.
3. Click Manage your subscriptions. This will take you to the Tools → Monetize page on your WordPress.com Dashboard.

You can also go directly to the Monetize page on WordPress.com by:

1. Go to WordPress.com.
2. Switch to your Jetpack-connected site from the left sidebar.
3. Navigate to Tools → Monetize.

You will see your earnings and supporters on this page. You can manage your existing payment plans from here. You can also disconnect your Stripe account here.

Note that Supporters, like all subscribers, are authenticated with WordPress.com and are not added locally as users on your site.

Related Fees

Please see this support article for information about associated transaction fees.

Transactions using this block do not account for taxes or shipping and will only charge the amount you’ve specified. If you wish to capture taxes or shipping, you can include this in the transaction amount when setting up the block​.