Create a Paid Newsletter

Set up a paid newsletter and earn with paid subscriptions, gated content options, and one-time offerings. Reward your most loyal subscribers with exclusive content and turn your writing into income.

Creating a Paid Newsletter requires Jetpack Blocks. See our Jetpack Blocks article to learn about the available blocks and how to activate them.

Get started

To set up a paid newsletter and start earning money, please follow these steps:

1. Make sure your self-hosted website is publicly accessible with Jetpack installed.
2. Connect your WordPress.com account to Jetpack.
3. Activate Jetpack Newsletter.
4. Access Monetize, and follow the instructions there to connect Stripe and create your Paid Newsletter payment plan.
5. Add a Subscribe block to any post or page to encourage subscribers to sign up for your newsletter.

Inviting subscriptions ahead of creating your content can set you up for success. Non-subscribers will still be prompted to subscribe to access your content based on the access restrictions you set, as described below.

Set up a payment plan

Now you can set a price for access to your paid newsletters, define the renewal frequency, and give your plan a name.

To add a new payment plan, follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools → Monetize on your WordPress.com Dashboard.
2. Click Payment Settings.
3. Click the Add a new payment plan button.
4. Toggle the “Paid newsletter tier” option “on” and you’ll then have the options for adding a Monthly and Annual Price for your paid newsletter.
   If you do not toggle the “Paid newsletter tier” option “on” you can choose the Renewal frequency and charge your subscribers on a monthly or yearly basis or just a one-time payment.
5. Fill out/review the following fields:
   • A name for your plan. This name will be seen by your subscribers when they sign up.
   • Amount (currency and price) you will charge subscribers.
   • Welcome message: write a brief message to welcome your subscribers.
   • Click “Advanced options” to reveal two extra options:
     • Enable customers to pick their own amount (“Pay what you want”)
     • Enable customers to make the same purchase multiple times (likely not suitable for paid newsletters)

Your new payment plan will appear under Payment Settings, where you can edit or delete the plan.

Write your post

Next, start writing your post:

1. Go to your site’s WP Admin.
2. Navigate to Posts → Add New.
3. Craft your post and add any images and other content using the WordPress editor.

To combat writer’s block, get some help from Jetpack AI Assistant block to get started.

Restrict access to your post

When published, a blog post is public by default. To limit visibility to paying subscribers, you have two options:

• Access Settings: Restrict full post access to any subscriber or only paying subscribers.
• Paywall Block: Display a portion of the post to all readers as a teaser, then restrict the remaining content to all subscribers or paying subscribers only.

Select a publish option

From the pre-publish sidebar, choose if you want to publish as Post & email, or as a post only. If you choose “post only” it will not be sent to your subscribers via email.

Select an access option

You can find Access options in the post settings, located on the right sidebar. If the Post Settings sidebar is hidden, click the top-right Settings icon, resembling a square with two uneven columns, to reveal it.

1. Scroll to the Access section.
2. Choose one of the following options:
   • Everyone: the post will be visible to the public.
   • Anyone subscribed: the post will be visible to your subscribers only. This includes free subscribers. Those who have not subscribed will see an option to subscribe.
   • Paid subscribers only: the post will be visible only to subscribers who have paid through the payment plan you set up earlier.

Use the Paywall block

You can also use the Paywall block to give full content access to any subscriber or just paying subscribers while showing a preview to non-subscribers.

To add the Paywall block:

1. Click on the + Block Inserter icon.
2. Search for “paywall”.
3. Select the Paywall block.

For more information, see how to add blocks in WordPress.

Place the Paywall block early in the post. Content before the block will be publicly accessible. Content after will be made accessible to any subscriber or paying subscribers, based on the block toolbar selection: “Anyone subscribed” or “Paid subscribers“:

Publish your post

Now that your post is ready and access restrictions are in place, it’s time to publish.

Click Publish to share your post with the selected audience, who will then receive an email newsletter in their inbox. When you publish the post, you will see the number of subscribers your post has been sent to based on your selected filter.

Manage plans, subscribers, and earnings

To manage your subscriptions, see customers, and monitor your revenue:

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 customers/subscribers on this page. You can manage and edit your existing payment plans from here. You can also disconnect your Stripe account from this page.

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

Related Fees

Jetpack charges a percentage of the fees you charge your readers; the amount depends on which Jetpack plan you have. Please see our help article about associated transaction fees.