Metered Paywalls & Registration Walls

Outpost’s paywall system lets you limit how many posts a reader can view before they’re prompted to sign up (registration wall) or upgrade to a paid subscription (metered paywall). This is configured through the Auto Display system’s Registration/Metered Wall slot.

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How it works

Outpost tracks how many unique posts each reader has viewed. When their view count exceeds the configured limit, a paywall popup appears instead of the post content. The limit means “up to N posts”: the wall appears on post N+1. For example, if the limit is set to 10, the reader can view 10 posts freely and the paywall appears on the 11th post. The paywall slot is disabled by default and must be enabled in Auto Display before it takes effect. Paid and complimentary members bypass the metered paywall entirely: it only applies to unknown visitors and free members. There are two independent walls: Both can run simultaneously: a reader might hit the registration wall first, sign up for free, and later hit the metered paywall.

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Setting up the paywall

Go to CTAs/Buttons/Popups → Auto Display, then click the Registration/Metered Wall tab.

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Assigning audiences

The Assign section has two audience rows, each with an enable toggle and a CTA dropdown:

• Unknown Audience: toggle on to enable the registration wall, then pick a subscribe-style paywall popup (e.g., “Paywall Popup Modern - Subscribe”).
• Free Audience: toggle on to enable the metered paywall, then pick an upgrade-style paywall popup (e.g., “Paywall Popup Modern - Upgrade”).

Toggle either row off to disable that wall on its own, or toggle both off to turn metering off entirely while leaving other Auto Display slots running. Switching Enable Metered Access on in the setup wizard switches both walls on together. To run only one of them, toggle the other row off here afterwards.

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Article limits

The Settings section has the post-count fields: These are starting points, not fixed values. Change either number at any time and the new limit applies the next time a reader loads a post. The values in the table apply only to sites that have not set the wall up yet: a site that already has these limits set keeps the numbers it has. If you set the limits in the setup wizard’s Metered Access step instead, that step accepts a number from 1 to 20 for each. The fields on this tab are not limited to that range, so you can set a higher number here.

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Display trigger

Choose when the paywall appears on a metered post:

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Tag exclusions

Use Don’t show on posts with tags to exempt specific posts from metering. For example, tag your most important posts with #free-access and add that tag to the exclusion list so they’re always accessible. Excluded posts don’t count toward the reader’s metered allowance. A reader who views an excluded post (whether it’s exempted by tag, or a cross-post identified by its newsletter ref) doesn’t use up one of their free views, so the exclusion never eats into the article limit for your metered content.

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Different popups by tag

You can show a different paywall popup depending on a post’s Ghost tags, without changing how many posts a reader gets. Politics posts can pitch your politics newsletter while everything else shows your general subscribe popup, and both count against the same limit. Click New audience, choose which audience this extra row applies to (Unknown Audience or Free Audience), then pick one or more tags. Assign the popup afterwards, from the new row’s dropdown. Rows set up this way are called tag-based variants. A variant is not a separate allowance. Each reader has a single post count covering your whole site, and the limits in Settings apply to every post. Keep the plain Unknown Audience and Free Audience rows switched on and assigned. Posts matching none of your variants fall back to those rows, so a variant cannot stand in for them: switch them off and posts outside your tags show nothing at all. If instead you want certain posts to be free and not count toward the limit, use the tag exclusions above. For how variants behave on posts with several tags, and what happens when you rename a tag, see Tag-based variants.

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Editing the paywall popups

Edit the popup content (headline, body text, button text) in the CTA Library under the Registration/Metered Wall tab.

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Paywall stats

A stats panel at the top of the tab shows how the two walls are performing. The numbers come from Outpost’s analytics, and they update approximately every 15 minutes. A wall shown to a reader who has just signed up can take up to about half an hour to appear here:

• The Registration Wall has been shown N times: total displays to unknown visitors.
• The Metered Paywall has been shown N times: total displays to free members.
• Free signups after hitting the Registration Wall, with click-through rate.
• Paid upgrades after hitting the Metered Paywall, with click-through rate.

For a deeper view across all CTAs, see the CTA Dashboard.

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Ghost native paywalls

Ghost also supports content-level gating via the <!--members-only--> tag in posts. Content below this tag is hidden from non-members. Outpost’s metered paywall is a separate, complementary system: Both systems can be used together, and most sites use some of each. Ghost controls each post on its own: open to anyone, available to signed-in members whether free or paid, or available to paid members only. Outpost’s two walls then work across whatever mix you choose. A post counts toward a reader’s allowance only when that reader can read the whole post:

• The registration wall counts only posts that are open to anyone. Posts you have set to members-only or paid-only in Ghost do not count for an unknown reader, and the wall does not appear on them.
• The metered paywall counts posts that are open to anyone and posts that are open to members. Posts you have set to paid-only do not count for a free member, so a reader who opens one and sees only the opening paragraphs keeps their full allowance.

That leaves three ways to set your site up:

1. Outpost’s walls on their own. Leave every post open in Ghost. The registration wall turns unknown readers into free members, and the metered paywall moves free members up to paid.
2. A mix of both. Keep some posts open to anyone, put some behind free registration, and reserve some for paid members, with Outpost’s walls metering whatever each reader can still read in full.
3. Ghost gating plus the metered paywall. Set your posts to members-only or paid-only, and use the metered paywall on its own to move free members up to paid.

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Customizing the paywall appearance

Paywall popup design inherits from your Default Design settings. You can also customize individual paywall CTA styles in the Library under the Registration/Metered Wall tab.

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Debugging the paywall

If the paywall doesn’t appear as expected, Outpost can show a debug panel directly on the page explaining its decision. Debug mode has to be switched on for your site by the Outpost team first: contact support to enable it. Then add ?outpost_debug=1 to any page URL on your site (e.g., https://yoursite.com/some-post?outpost_debug=1) and a panel appears in the corner of the page showing:

• Whether the paywall slot is enabled
• The current visitor’s post view count and what their limit is
• Why the paywall did or did not appear on that page
• Whether the post was excluded by a tag rule or site-wide exclusion

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Frequently asked questions

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