Manage Complimentary Newsletter Subscriptions

Learn how to grant complimentary access to your paid newsletter so selected subscribers can receive premium content without being charged.

Grant free access to your paid newsletter by giving subscribers a complimentary subscription. They receive all your paid content without being charged, making this useful for family, friends, collaborators, or VIPs. Complimentary subscriptions do not involve any payment processing, so the subscriber gets free access and you are not charged.

Who you can give complimentary subscriptions to

You can give complimentary subscriptions to the following types of subscribers:

• Free subscribers, including email-only subscribers without a WordPress.com account.
• People who are not currently subscribed. They will be added as a subscriber automatically when comped.

You cannot give a complimentary subscription to someone who already has an active paid subscription to the same plan.

If you migrated from Substack, complimentary subscriptions do not transfer during import. You will need to grant complimentary access to those subscribers again.

Give a complimentary subscription

To give a subscriber a complimentary subscription from your Subscribers page:

1. From your WP Admin, go to Jetpack → Subscribers.
2. Find the subscriber you want to provide a complimentary subscription to. They can be an existing free subscriber or an email-only subscriber.
3. Click the three dots (⋮) next to their name and click Comp a subscription.
4. On the Complimentary subscription screen, select the newsletter plan you want to give them access to.
5. Select the Doesn’t expire option if you want the subscription to never expire. Leave it unselected to allow the subscription to expire at the end of its billing period.
6. Click the Confirm button.

The subscriber will receive an email confirming they now have access to your paid content. Their subscription type will change to Comp on your Subscribers page.

You can also comp a subscriber from their profile. Click the subscriber’s name to open their details, then click Comp a subscription.

Complimentary subscriptions are added one at a time. If you need to grant access to many subscribers, contact support for assistance.

Remove a complimentary subscription

To remove a complimentary subscription and revoke access to paid content:

1. From your WP Admin, go to Jetpack → Subscribers.
2. Click the subscriber’s name to open their profile.
3. Under Newsletter subscription details → Plan, click the trash can icon.
4. Click the Remove button to confirm.

The subscriber will immediately lose access to paid content and remain on your list as a free subscriber.

Clicking Remove from the three-dot menu on the main Subscribers page removes the subscriber entirely from your list, not just the complimentary subscription.

View complimentary subscribers

You can identify and manage comped subscribers in the following ways:

• On your Subscribers page, comped users display Comp as their subscription type.
• Subscribers with complimentary subscriptions receive all paid newsletter posts, just like paying subscribers.
• The paid subscriber count in the publishing sidebar includes subscribers with complimentary subscriptions.