GatePost
A metered paywall for news publishers that installs on WordPress without touching your domain.
Three free articles, then subscribe. Gift links for sharing. Institutional seats for libraries and schools. No migration.
Add the paywall to your site
30 days free. Cancel any time. Your domain, your readers, your Stripe account.
The membership platforms built for creators — Substack, Ghost, Patreon — were designed around one assumption: you move to their platform. You get their subdomain, their publishing interface, their reader relationship. In exchange, you get a paywall. For a creator starting from scratch, that trade makes sense. For a news publisher with two years of indexed content, 4,000 email subscribers, and a WordPress installation that runs your editorial workflow, it is a bad deal.
GatePost is a paywall layer that sits on top of what you already have. Readers land on your URL, read your content in your design, and hit the subscribe prompt after their third article — exactly the way The Atlantic and The Information work, but without the seven-figure engineering team.
Independent news outlets lose reader revenue in three specific places. Readers who want to pay can't find a frictionless path to subscribe. Subscribers who want to share a story can't do it without handing over their login. Organizations — libraries, schools, local businesses — want to pay for access but can't buy five individual seats with one invoice. GatePost closes all three gaps at once.
The Features Every Local Newsroom Needs But No Creator Platform Ships
Substack has no metered access. You either hide everything or show everything. Ghost has metered access only on its hosted plan, which requires migrating your domain. Neither platform has gift article links. Neither has institutional billing with net-30 invoices. These are table stakes for any news outlet that wants to build reader revenue without giving up the audience it spent years developing.
Independent publishers who try to add a paywall to an existing WordPress news site face a specific problem: every tool that solves the metered access question either requires a platform migration or a custom development project. Memberful handles subscriptions but has no meter. Stripe alone handles billing but nothing else. A developer quote for a custom paywall runs $5,000–12,000 upfront and requires ongoing maintenance. That cost stops most two-person newsrooms before they start.
Introducing GatePost
Your CMS stays. Your domain stays. GatePost adds the metered paywall layer that creator platforms left out.
It connects to your own Stripe account, runs on your own domain, and stays out of your publishing workflow entirely.
What You Get — Starting at $49/month
Per-reader article meter — Tracks each visitor's free article count across devices and login states. Fires the subscribe prompt after a threshold you set (default: three articles). Resets monthly.
Gift article links — Subscribers generate a single-use URL that bypasses the meter for one reader. The link expires in 24 hours. The recipient needs no account.
Institutional and group subscriptions — Schools, libraries, and local businesses purchase a seat block on a single net-30 invoice. The library director sends one invoice; each staff member gets their own login.
WordPress plugin with zero theme changes — One-click install from the plugin directory. Connects to your existing user table without touching your theme.
JavaScript embed for any CMS — A two-line script tag that works with Webflow, custom builds, or any CMS that serves HTML.
Article-to-subscriber conversion dashboard — Shows meter hit rate by article, conversion rate by content category, gift link redemption, and churn by acquisition source. Updated daily.
Stripe-native billing — Payments process through your Stripe account. Payouts go directly to you on Stripe's standard schedule.
Configurable reader tiers (monthly, annual, student, institutional) — Up to four tiers with independent pricing and access rules. No coding required to configure.
Why $49/month (or $129 for Publisher)
At $49, you break even the moment seven readers subscribe at $7/month. At $129, a single library institutional seat covers your annual cost. The alternatives — Ghost Pro migration at the same price point plus the work of moving your site, or a custom paywall build at $5,000–12,000 upfront — carry costs that most independent outlets can't absorb before they've proven reader revenue. Most outlets on the Publisher plan close their first institutional subscription within 60 days, which puts the tool's annual cost behind them in a single transaction.
Who This Is For
You run a local or regional news outlet on WordPress or a custom CMS you're not willing to migrate away from.
You've looked at Substack and Ghost and rejected both because of the domain migration requirement or the missing metered access feature.
You have readers who want to support your work but no clean path for them to subscribe on your site.
You want to pitch the local library or school district on an institutional subscription but have no way to sell them a seat block with a single invoice.
You publish at least three articles per week — enough volume that a metered model generates meaningful conversion.
The GatePost Domain Guarantee
If GatePost causes any change to your domain, your existing URLs, or your Google Search Console data within 30 days of installation, we will refund your first month and work with your team to reverse the change. Claim it by emailing support with your installation date.
In 60 Days, You'll Have:
- A metered paywall live on your existing site, serving your current domain with no URL changes
- A subscriber base paying through your own Stripe account, with payouts going directly to you
- Gift article link sharing active, so subscribers can bring in readers without sharing login credentials
- At least one institutional subscription pitch ready, with a seat-block purchase page you can send to a library or school
- A clear picture of which articles convert free readers to subscribers, from the conversion analytics dashboard
- The ability to add or adjust subscription tiers without touching code
Frequently Asked Questions
Does GatePost work with a WordPress news site that already has user accounts?
GatePost connects to your existing WordPress user table. Readers who already have accounts on your site log in with their current credentials. Existing users are not migrated or duplicated.
GatePost vs Ghost: what's the difference for a publisher who wants to keep their domain?
Ghost requires hosting your publication on Ghost's infrastructure to use its paywall features. GatePost installs on your existing WordPress or custom CMS site and leaves your domain, your hosting, and your publishing workflow unchanged. Ghost is a publishing platform. GatePost is a paywall layer.
How long does it take to add a paywall to a WordPress news site?
The WordPress plugin installs in under an hour. The JavaScript embed for Webflow or custom CMS takes about 20 minutes to drop in. Stripe connection, meter configuration, and your first subscription tier are set up through a dashboard — no code required.
Can we sell institutional subscriptions to organizations that pay by invoice?
The Publisher plan includes institutional and group subscriptions with net-30 invoicing. You set the seat price and block size. The organization receives one invoice; each seat holder gets their own login. This covers libraries, schools, local business associations, and municipal governments that cannot process individual subscription purchases.
What it is: A paywall layer for news publishers that adds metered access, gift article links, and institutional subscriptions to any existing WordPress or custom CMS site.
What you get: Per-reader article meter, gift article links, institutional billing, WordPress plugin, JS embed, article-to-subscriber analytics, Stripe-native payments, configurable reader tiers.
Price: $49/month (Starter) or $129/month (Publisher)
Catch: The Publisher plan is required for institutional subscriptions and unlimited metered views. Starter caps at 5,000 metered views per month.
Guarantee: 30-day domain integrity guarantee — if GatePost changes anything about your domain or URLs, you get a full refund and reversal support.
Add the paywall to your site