How to require a paid subscription to access Direct Messages.
Monetize access to Direct Messages by requiring a subscription to access the Direct Message feature in your community. With this feature enabled, non-subscribing users will receive a paywall gate when attempting to access Direct Messages.
Note: This functionality requires that communities have setup their Subscription settings and created Subscription Products.
- Make sure that you have set your Direct Message Model settings. If Direct Messages are set to OFF, you will not be able to use this feature.
- Each of your community's Subscription Products will need to be updated to enable or disable Direct Messaging.
- Click here for Setup using Control Center 1.0 (most customers)
- Click here for Setup using Control Center 2.0
- Important Note: If you enable this feature and put Direct Messages behind a particular subscription product, make sure to update the product's line items/descriptions and perks of any other subscription products that now do not have access to Direct Messages to highlight it.
It’s also suggested that you let your community know that some may lose access to Direct Messages if they are not a subscriber to a community subscription that has DM access.
- Login to Admin Control Center and access Billing -> Products via the drop-down links at the top of the page.
- The Billing Products page lists all of the active and inactive Subscription products you have created. Each subscription product has an Edit link in the far-right column - click Edit to edit the desired subscription product.
- Scroll down to the Affordances section of the page. To enable Direct Messaging for this product, click the check box for Direct Messaging. If you want to disable Direct Messaging for a particular product, make sure that Direct Messaging is not enabled for that product, with an unchecked box for Direct Messaging.
- Click Update Product when you are done changing your settings.
- Repeat this process for your other Subscription Products. Note: If you have a Free membership option for users and you want to require that users have a paid subscription to access Direct Messages, update your FREE community subscription product and uncheck the Direct Messaging affordance.
- Note: If you enable this feature and put Direct Messages behind a particular subscription product, make sure to update the product's line items/descriptions and perks of any other subscription products that now do not have access to Direct Messages.
It’s also suggested that you let your community know that some may lose access to Direct Messages if they are not a subscriber to a community subscription that has DM access.
Using Control Center 2.0:
- Login to your community using your Community Leader account. Your community leader account is the account you use to Feature posts from within your community.
- Open the slide-out menu in your community and click the Control Center menu link. This will open Control Center 2.0.
- Click the tab button in the top right of your screen, this will open up the slide-out menu of your Control Center. In the slide-out menu, click Subscriptions to expand the menu and then click Subscription Products.
- The Subscription Products page lists all of the active and inactive Subscription products you have created. Each subscription product has an Edit option in the Actions column - click the three dots button under the Actions colum, then click Edit to edit the desired subscription product.
- Scroll down to Subscription Product Features & Benefits, then click the toggle button for Direct messaging. To enable, put the toggle button in the right position. To disable, make sure Direct messaging is listed as "(off)" in the list of Features.
- Update your Displayed Benefits list to remove or add Direct Messaging as a listed benefit for this subscription product.
- Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to save your changes.
- Repeat this process for all of your active Subscription Products.
- Note: If you enable this feature and put Direct Messages behind a particular subscription product, make sure to update the product's line items/descriptions and perks of any other subscription products that now do not have access to Direct Messages.
It’s also suggested that you let your community know that some may lose access to Direct Messages if they are not a subscriber to a community subscription that has DM access.