Last year I put a part of my blog behind a paywall. The price was a little bit less than a cup of coffee and started from a 1$ monthly tier. It worked via no code Zapier integration of Ghost and Patreon

The Benefits of Putting Up Paywall

I decided that paywall right at the beginning might be a way to build an absolutely new kind of audience.

I'm not so petty to consider 1$ subscription fee seriously, so
money was not my primary goal. Nevertheless, I wanted to test if there is the such a market at all and how the audience might feel about the paid indie web.

Another goal was to separate content. I wanted to hide more private stuff, that I didn't want to share openly behind a barrier. The barrier was to filter those who are really interested and 1$ seemed like a good candidate for that role.

Why You Probably Shouldn't Put the Content Behind Paywall

You Probably shouldn't put the content behind a paywall because it seems like it doesn't work as simple as that.

Paywall on the Top of the Funnel Doesn’t Work

You cannot just put a pay button on the very top of the funnel and expect newcomers to tap it.

In the current state of the internet race of engagement, a free subscription via email is already a big step for the majority of users that come to your blog or site.

They don't know you, they (maybe) don't see any obvious value, and they won't just pay until you are a gorgeous webcam model with nice boobies behind the wall.

Paywall Works Only For Outstanding Value Behind

A paywall should hide a great value behind it, otherwise, it has little chance to work. The overall value of blog posts even if it is some top secret stuff is probably not enough.

If you are New York Times or your name is Mr. Success and you are a 3-comma-club member, then somebody might try to sneak behind the 1$ paywall to know all your secrets.

Rediverge which is a blog of Ghost.org founder is a pretty good example. The whole blog is behind a hard paywall. How many subscribers does it have? I have no idea.

Paywall May Kill Your Motivation as an Online Writer

One of the greatest motivations for writing a blog is simply numbers.

Dopamine makes your heart warm when you see that somebody reads your stuff and you get the superpower to write more.

In my case, posts behind the paywall were barely read due to a small number of paid subscribers. It automatically discouraged me to post something behind it. And eventually to post anything at all.

Very disappointing for me and even more disappointing for paid subscribers.

Paywall Does Work For Online Communities

It seems that private and cozy thematic communities are something that users are ready to pay for. It's definitely an interesting thing, but still, it can't be done on top of the funnel. To make it, you should have traffic first.

I've Removed the Paywall

Finally, I've removed the paywall and put some of the private posts behind a soft kind of wall - an email subscription, which is free.

It works like charm: not everyone sees them, but those who are really interested get subscribed.