Members and Paid Posts

By the end of this page, you will know how to lock part of a post, how visitors get in, and how to email new posts to subscribers.

This works with your blog (see Blog and Collections). Locking a post for paying readers also needs a subscription product (see your site's e-commerce settings).

Who is a member

A member is a visitor who has signed in to your site. This is separate from you and your teammates, who use the builder. Members never get access to your editor or your drafts.

Members sign in with a magic link. There are no passwords:

1. The visitor types their email.
2. We email them a link that works for 15 minutes.
3. They open it and click Confirm.

They stay signed in on that browser for 30 days. Each site has its own members. The same person signing in to two sites is a member of both.

On the sign-in form, a checkbox says Email me new posts. It is off by default. Signing in later never turns it back on if they turned it off.

Lock a post

1. Open the post in the editor.
2. In the Settings tab, open Access.
3. Choose who can read past the gate:
   • Public. Anyone reads the whole post.
   • Members. Anyone signed in to your site can read it.
   • Paid. Only active paying subscribers can read it. A free trial counts as free.
4. For Paid, tick the plan or plans that unlock it. You must choose at least one before you can publish.
5. Optionally fill in the Paywall text: a Heading, a Message, and a Button label. This is what a locked visitor sees.

Place the gate

The gate decides where the lock begins. It sits between sections. Everything above it is free for all to read. The section below it and everything after are locked.

1. In the post body, move your mouse between two sections.
2. Click Gate starts here.
3. Use Move up, Move down, or Remove on the gate line to change it.

The line reads Members only below this line or Paid subscribers only below this line.

If you set a post to Members or Paid but never place a gate, the whole post body is locked. If a gate section is later deleted, the post fails safe the same way. It never opens up by accident.

Check how it looks

Above the post body, switch View as between Editor and Locked visitor. Locked visitor shows the free part and the paywall, so you can check the teaser.

What visitors see

A locked visitor sees the free sections and a paywall with your text and a sign-in or subscribe button. The locked content is never sent to their browser at all. It isn't just hidden, so viewing the page source won't reveal it.

Posts with a gate are not stored in a shared public cache, so a paying member never sees someone else's version, and a visitor never gets a paying member's.

Pictures and videos in the locked part are kept in a private copy and shown to members with temporary links. One limit: if someone already had the original picture's web address from before, that address keeps working. If this matters, keep sensitive files out of locked posts.

Email new posts to subscribers

You can email each new post to the members who opted in.

One-time setup

1. Open Site Settings, then the Email tab.
2. Enter a domain or subdomain you own, like mail.yourbusiness.com, without https://. Emails come from posts@ that domain.
3. Add the DNS records shown at your domain provider. This is like connecting a custom domain.
4. Use the status check until the domain shows as verified. DNS changes can take a while.

Email sending needs an active, paid site.

Send a post

1. Open the post.
2. In its Email panel, tick Email subscribers when I publish.
3. Publish.

This is off every time you open a post, so nothing sends by accident. The email carries the title, a short summary, and a link. It never includes the locked part of the post.

Each post is emailed once. Publishing it again won't email again. If you need to, click Send again and confirm, which re-emails everyone.

If the post has no subscribers yet, or you haven't verified a domain, the panel tells you why it can't send. A failed email never undoes the publish.

Unsubscribing

Every email has an unsubscribe link, and mail apps show their own unsubscribe button. Someone who unsubscribes stays off the list until they choose to join again. Anyone who reports an email as spam, or whose address bounces, is removed automatically.

See how it's going

Under Email analytics in the post's Email panel, and on the Members page, you'll see:

• Delivered, Unique opens, Unique clicks, and Click rate for each send.
• Opens are approximate. Some mail apps load images automatically, so an open may not mean someone read it. Clicks are the number to trust.

In Site Settings, Email you can:

• Attribute opens and clicks to individual subscribers. Off by default, so counts have no names attached. If you turn this on, you are responsible for telling your subscribers.
• Set how many days to keep detailed activity. After that, only the totals are kept.

The Members page

Open Members in the left panel. It shows:

• Your total members, split into paid and free.
• New paid, New free, and Churned (paying members whose subscription ended) for a date range you choose, with a day-by-day table.
• Email engagement for your last sends.
• Gated posts: how often each was viewed locked, how many viewers became paying subscribers, and the conversion rate.

The page only shows totals. It never lists who the members are or who opened what. History is saved once a day, so a missed day leaves a gap in the chart.

Good to know

• A visitor who pays for a subscription becomes a member automatically. Signing in still needs a link emailed to the address they paid with.
• Paid access is matched by email address. A reader must sign in with the same email they paid with.
• There is a daily and monthly limit on post emails across the platform. If a send would go over, it's refused and tells you why.
• The sign-in, privacy, and cookie wording on your site is a starting point. Check it with your own legal advice.
• There's no public "subscribe" form yet. People join the email list when they sign in.