Hard Paywall for Premium Content
Lock premium content until a reader subscribes or makes a one-time payment, with server-side enforcement you control.
Trusted by leading publishers worldwide
Hard paywall examples
Trusted by leading publishers worldwide
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How a hard paywall works
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Investigation
Inside the year that reshaped reader revenue
Subscriptions overtook advertising for the third straight quarter, and the newsrooms that moved first are setting the terms for everyone else.
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Best for
Who it's for
Publishers with premium reporting or research worth paying for
Titles moving from free to paid access
Teams that need strict, enforceable content gating
Features
What it does
- Premium content gating
- Lock articles or whole sections until a reader subscribes or completes a one-time purchase.
- Server-side enforcement
- Paywall state is exposed via cookies so you can validate access on your server, not just in the browser.
- Targeting and tagging
- Gate specific content using article tags, URL patterns or a custom rule, so the wall appears exactly where you want it.
- SEO-safe by default
- Crawlers are detected and the paywall is disabled for them, so gated articles stay indexable.
421% more new subscribers one month after introducing a Pelcro paywall
Times Review Media Group put its free New York titles behind Pelcro's paywall. In March 2019 it launched a metered paywall on articles tagged premium, giving readers three free premium articles, and bounce rates stayed unaffected.
Read the full case study“Our partnership with Pelcro has seamlessly allowed us to evolve our digital business model. The Pelcro team has been incredibly responsive and has both the business and technical capabilities to radically modernize the distribution model for our brands.”
Andrew Olsen, Publisher, Times Review Media Group
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- What is hard paywall software?
- Hard paywall software locks premium content immediately, so a reader must subscribe or pay before they can read it. See hard paywall examples
- Hard vs soft vs metered paywall, what is the difference?
- A hard paywall gates content up front, a metered paywall allows a few free reads first, and a soft paywall nudges without fully blocking. Compare metered paywalls
- Can search engines still index gated content?
- Yes. Pelcro detects crawlers and turns the paywall off for them by default, so your premium articles keep their search visibility.
- How is access enforced?
- Pelcro exposes paywall state through cookies, so you can enforce access server-side and control how strict the gate is.
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Launch your hard paywall with Pelcro
Gate premium content, enforce access server-side, and convert readers into paying subscribers.
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