Flexible Sampling for Paywalls – Metering vs. Lead-in Best Practices

Two main types of sampling are used to manage user access before a paywall appears:

Metering:
- Users get a quota of free articles (e.g., 10 articles per month) before hitting a paywall.
- After the quota, users must subscribe or log in to access more content.
Lead-in:
- Shows a teaser—like the first few sentences of an article—above the paywall after the quota is used.
- Builds curiosity and lets users get a taste of the content value before subscribing.

Best Practices for Metering #

Prefer monthly metering over daily metering:
- Gives more flexibility, less user frustration.
- Focuses paywalls on engaged users more likely to subscribe.
Most daily news sites find 6 to 10 free articles per user per month a good starting range.
Start by allowing 10 free articles/month and adjust based on your user behavior and conversion data.
Analyze how many search visitors reach your paywall now, then set your sampling limit to match or slightly improve that.

Showing article leads after the free quota is exhausted is a great way to:
- Offer value beyond a hard paywall.
- Encourage subscriptions by teasing the full content.

Test different sampling limits carefully.
Watch referral traffic and subscription conversions closely.
Avoid showing paywalls too frequently; more than 10% paywall exposure risks alienating users. This often means about 3% of total users see a paywall.
Consider targeting the most engaged users (those who use all free articles) with stricter limits, while allowing others more access to keep satisfaction high.

Use structured data markup (Paywalled Content schema) to mark paywalled sections.
This helps Google distinguish legitimate paywalls from cloaking (showing different content to users and Googlebot).