The writing is the easy part to explain. The paid side isn’t. Put it on a newsletter platform and it’s quick to start, but the publication lives on their platform and a share of every subscription goes with it. Put it on your own site and you’re suddenly the person configuring paywalls, tiers and renewal emails instead of writing the next piece.
Paid publications leak in two places: a setup that’s fiddly to get right, and quiet failures once it’s running. A publication’s product is its rhythm: new work keeps arriving, and the free pieces exist to prove the writing is worth paying to keep reading. So the setup is fiddly in a particular way. Which pieces stay free? What does a subscriber get that a free reader doesn’t? Is there a higher tier for the readers who want to back the work?
And once it’s running, the quiet failures cost more than the setup did. A renewal reminder gets switched off somewhere along the way and nobody notices until the renewals don’t come in. A tier stops converting. When you’re the only person running it, those are the things that slip.
MemberPress.ai builds the paid side of your publication on your own WordPress site, from a conversation, and adds that setup to your site as drafts. That covers the reader tiers and signup pages, which stay drafts until you publish them. What it sets up:
A free preview level, a paid subscriber level, and an annual founding-reader level for readers who want to back the work at a higher rate. What each level can read, and what stays free, is yours to set with MemberPress’s access rules.
Setup drafts MemberPress’s own signup, checkout, login and account pages for you to publish. Once you’ve connected Stripe or PayPal in its payment settings, a reader can subscribe, pay and manage the subscription there.
It reads your publication’s own subscribers and revenue and points at the leaks, a renewal reminder switched off being the classic one. Each finding tells you what to change.
Keep writing and sending the way you do now. MemberPress.ai handles who’s paid and whether they renew.
A free preview level, a paid level and a founding-reader level, with the signup and checkout pages drafted. Opal tells you what’s left before a reader can subscribe.
You connect your own Stripe or PayPal in MemberPress’s payment settings, and what each reader pays for their subscription goes into your account.
Publish the tiers, mention them in your next issue, and your first reader subscribes on your site.
After that, Opal watches your renewals from your own numbers, so they don’t quietly slip, and tells you what to fix next.
Choose a site you own if you want the publication on your own site, without a platform keeping a share of each subscription. Substack and Patreon make going paid genuinely quick. Substack takes care of the newsletter, the paywall and the app, and it can put your writing in front of new readers through its own discovery. Patreon adds memberships, tiers, video, chat and exportable email lists. Both say you own your subscriber list.
The trade-off is that both keep a share of what you earn, plus payment processing, and the publication lives on their platform. MemberPress.ai runs on a WordPress site you own, with your payment gateway and your reader list staying yours.
Publisher · A paid investing newsletter
Tariq publishes a paid investing newsletter with a high-ticket annual tier. His site was already working, so this wasn’t a rescue. Somewhere along the way his renewal reminders had been switched off, and renewals were slipping away without him seeing it.
Watch Tariq's interview (video)
Hi, I'm Opal from MemberPress.ai, the AI that builds and runs your membership site.
Today I'm with Tariq Haddad, who publishes a paid investing research newsletter.
Your site's been running for years.
What's the part nobody sees?
The settings.
I read every chart in the market, but I switched my renewal reminders off during a move and never switched them back on.
Almost a year.
Readers weren't leaving over the research, they just never got the reminder.
I want my time on the research, not on the switches.
That's what I'm for.
Just talk to me.
I help run the site with you.
Then I'll get back to the charts.
No. Keep your email tool and your writing routine. MemberPress.ai sets up and runs the paid side: the tiers and renewals.
Yes. MemberPress’s access rules, which you set, decide what each tier can read, and the free preview tier exists so new readers can sample the writing before they pay.
It reads your own members and revenue and flags what’s quietly costing you money, like a renewal reminder that’s been switched off, and tells you what to change. You get answers about your own publication, not generic advice.
Yes. On any plan, connect Claude, ChatGPT or another AI assistant to your site’s own endpoint and run the site from there; ChatGPT needs a one-time setting on your site before it can sign in. Connecting Claude or ChatGPT to your MemberPress.ai account for the advisor is on the paid plan. The same approvals apply either way.
Connect your site and tell it what you publish, once. Connect your own Stripe or PayPal, and your first reader can subscribe. After that, Opal watches the renewals so they don’t quietly slip.
Dues, renewal season and the board’s questions, on a site the association owns.
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