Leaky Paywall and WooCommerce integration

Our Leaky Paywall - WooCommerce add-on is an integration for Leaky Paywall and WooCommerce. With this integration: Leaky Paywall controls content access, WooCommerce handles new signups and payment.

This integration is best used when you need to use a different payment gateway than Stripe or PayPal or you want to keep all your subscriber and item purchase data in WooCommerce.

Here is an example Leaky Paywall/WooCommerce setup.

Note: Leaky Paywall comes with a PayPal and Stripe integration out of the box, so you don't need this add-on if you use one of those payment gateways. 

The add-on requires Leaky Paywall and WooCommerce to be installed and active on your site. 

After installing the plugin, follow the steps below to begin using Leaky Paywall - WooCommerce on your site. 

1. Create a WooCommerce product

Go to Products > Add New in the WP admin. Create your product as you normally would for WooCommerce. 

The add-on works with Simple products and Variable products. Set the product price to whatever you want it to be. 

2. Connect the WooCommerce product to a Leaky Paywall level

Go to Leaky Paywall > Settings > Subscriptions. Scroll down to the Subscription Levels settings. On the Leaky Paywall level, set the Subscription Name, Subscription Length, Access Options, and WooCommerce Products. 

Any fields related to the registration or subscribe cards will be irrelevant since WooCommerce will be handing the payment flow.

Note: The Subscription Length and Access Options are still relevant because those are what Leaky Paywall uses to determine access.

You can select more than one WooCommerce product per level if needed.

3. Turn off guest checkout in WooCommerce

Leaky Paywall requires the customer to create a user account in order to know what access to give to a user.

Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Account & Privacy in the WP admin. Deselect the Guest Checkout - Allow customers to place orders without an account option. Select the Account Creation -  Allow customers to create an account during checkout option.

4. Set your Page for Subscribe Cards

Because WooCommerce will be handling the entire checkout process, you will want to set your Page for Subscribe Cards to be your WooCommerce Shop page (or a custom page with links to the WooCommerce products you created in step 1). This will allow users to view your WooCommerce products for the different levels whenever you are using the {{SUBSCRIBE_URL}} variable.

5. Disable your welcome emails

In Leaky Paywall > Emails make sure you disable all the notification emails since WooCommerce will be sending them.

How A Subscriber Is Created

After a customer checks out through WooCommerce, the add-on sees if they purchased any products that are connected to a Leaky Paywall level. If so, it creates a new Leaky Paywall subscriber for the customer and sets their expiration date based on the Leaky Paywall level Subscription Length settings. 

The subscriber will be created if the order status is set to Processing or Completed. That means if an order defaults to "On Hold", a subscriber will not be created. 

Integration with WooCommerce Subscriptions

If the customer purchases a recurring product that is connected to a Leaky Paywall level, they will be created as a recurring Leaky Paywall subscriber. When a recurring payment is processed by WooCommerce Subscriptions, it will update that subscribers expiration date in Leaky Paywall. If a recurring payment fails, or the subscriber cancels their subscription, their Leaky Paywall payment status will update to "deactivated" or "canceled", respectively. 

Free registrations are supported. Simply create a subscription product in Woo that costs $0

Why would I use the Leaky Paywall - WooCommerce add-on versus the Leaky Paywall - Recurring Payments add-on?

What Leaky Paywall add-ons work with our Woo integration?