If your community has content worth paying for, such as in-depth articles, expert answers or a knowledge base you've spent years building, you've probably wondered how much of it to give away.
The trouble is that there's no easy middle ground. Make it all free and members have little reason to upgrade. Hide it behind a subscription, and they never get to see what they'd be paying for.
News publishers have used a simple answer for years. They let readers open a set number of articles before asking them to subscribe, and it's now a model most people recognise instantly.
Limited Content Views in Invision Community 5.1 brings that same idea to your community.
It lets you give members a set allowance of topics and Pages articles, shows them how much they have left while they read, and invites them to subscribe when they're ready for more.
How it works
Limited Content Views lets you set how many items a member group can open over a period of time.
For example, free members might get 10 topics every 7 days, while subscribers get unlimited access. When the allowance runs out, members see your upgrade message instead of the content.
Topics and Pages each have their own allowance, so you can leave the forums wide open and meter only your articles, or the other way around.
You can narrow it down further to specific forums or Pages databases. Keep general discussion free and meter only your expert forum or your premium articles database.
What your members see
Nobody likes hitting a wall without warning. While reading limited content, members see a banner showing how many views they have left, what their allowance is and when it resets. A progress meter fills as they go, with an optional upgrade button right there while they're reading the content. You can place the banner in the header or as a sticky footer.
Once the allowance is used up, opening something new shows your custom message in place of the content.
We've also made sure it feels fair. Anything a member has already opened stays readable, so going back to a topic doesn't use another view. Likewise, viewing all pages of a topic only counts as a single view.
Nobody gets locked out halfway through a piece of content they started yesterday. The allowance resets after the period you choose, and members can see exactly when that will happen.
Pair it with subscriptions
Limited Content Views works best alongside Invision Community's Subscriptions feature. Subscriptions let you sell paid plans that move members into a group with elevated access, and that group can have a higher allowance or no limit at all.
Point the upgrade button straight at your subscription plans, and members can go from reading to subscribed in a couple of clicks.
You can also use the message members see when they run out of views to pitch your paid options directly. Explain what each plan includes, what it costs and why it's worth it, at the exact moment they want to keep reading.
If a member belongs to more than one group, they get the more generous limit. So as soon as someone subscribes and joins your paid group, the cap lifts straight away.
Setting it up
Limits live in your member group settings, next to familiar options like posting and attachment limits. For each content type, set the number of views and days, or leave it unlimited.
The upgrade button can link to your subscription plans, or anywhere else you like, such as your own landing page.
A few ways to use it
A premium article library. Free members read 5 Pages articles a week, and subscribers read as many as they like.
Expert forums. General discussion stays open to everyone, while a specialist forum where your most experienced members answer questions is metered for free members and unlimited for subscribers.
A taste of everything. Give free members a small allowance across both forums and articles so they can explore, then show them your subscription plans when they're ready for more.
Limited Content Views gives members a real feel for what your community offers before you ask them to pay, and it makes the value of subscribing visible while they're reading.
We're excited to see how you use it to build your memberships.
This feature is available on all Invision Community plans and packages
