Paywall and subscriptions software lets a reader see a few free articles each month, then asks them to pay, and handles the sign-ups, payments and renewals. A paywall is the screen that stops a reader who has not paid. When it allows a few free articles first, it is called a metered paywall.
There are three common kinds. A hard paywall shows nothing without a subscription. A metered paywall shows a set number of free articles a month. A freemium paywall keeps most stories free and locks only some, often marked "premium". Many Indian news sites use the freemium model, because most Indian readers are used to free news.
Take, for example, a reader in Visakhapatnam who follows business news. On the 3rd of the month, he reads two free articles. On the 9th, he opens a third story, and a box covers half of it. The box offers a plan at ₹99 a month or ₹999 a year. The software knew it was his third article because it counted his visits. If he is not logged in, it counts by his browser. If he is logged in, it counts by his account, on any device.
He chooses the yearly plan. The paywall sends him to a payment gateway page, where he pays by UPI. He can set up UPI AutoPay, a standing instruction that lets the publisher take each renewal from his bank account. Under RBI rules, the bank must notify him before each automatic payment. The subscription billing software then keeps track of the plan. It knows when the year ends, sends a reminder, takes the renewal payment and records any cancellation.
Once he subscribes, every page checks his account before it opens. The newsroom CMS marks which stories are for subscribers only. The paywall unlocks them for him and keeps them locked for others.
The paywall also learns about readers. It records what each logged-in reader reads, when they read and which offers they ignore. This is first-party data, data a company collects about its own customers on its own site. It matters more now that third-party cookies are blocked. The publisher can send this data to a customer data platform (CDP), to decide which reader should see which offer. For instance, a reader who opens five cricket stories a week may be offered a cricket-only plan.
Some publishers also sell single articles, instead of full subscriptions. Deciding what one article should cost is the job of AI content pricing tools.