WordPress makes it’s easier than ever to create and charge for a digital publication on the web. But, given that apps are the preferred way to read digital content – how do you, the publisher, give readers paid access to your content in a convenient app… that doesn’t break the bank or your back? Apps are ridiculously expensive and will increase my workload… right?

For People’s Pundit Daily, this app expense and complexity is now history.

PPD is a niche publication that reports on political, economic and cultural events ‘within the beltway’ in Washington D.C.

Notifications
[Left] People’s Pundit Daily App Home page. [Right] Subscribers can turn push notifications on and off within the App Settings page.
PPD uses WordPress as their publishing platform, Leaky Paywall to allow readers to read a few free articles before having to pay to subscribe, and UniPress to push all of their articles to apps (iOS and Android). Their set up is truly 1 click, and make it a snap to charge subscriptions and publish into apps.

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How it works

When an article is published on the web, UniPress automatically pushes the article into the reader’s app. As long as a reader has a valid subscription (from the web or in-app) they have full access to PPD’s articles.

Readers can subscribe from either the website or in-app to gain access to both app and web articles. There is no extra work from PPD, the articles and subscriptions are both managed in WordPress.

PPD can also send push notifications right from the WordPress dashboard [see image below]. Push notifications can be sent immediately or scheduled for a future point in time. Subscribers also have the ability to subscribe to specific categories of push notifications to get exactly the content they want.

WP-PushNote-Dashboard
WordPress Browser Dashboard: Type up your publication’s push notification and schedule it to publish immediately or at a set time/date.
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Badge notification shows the reader new articles are available

Even if a subscriber has all push notifications turned off, they will see a number prompt in the top right corner of the app icon (we call it a badge) to inform them that new articles are available. Once the app is opened and closed, this number disappears.

Easy for subscribers to activate the app

A subscriber can add their subscription to their mobile device on the Leaky Paywall “Manage Subscription” page. All they need to do is click on “Add New Mobile Device” and a 6 digit token is automatically generated. The subscriber types the code into their app and now the subscription is linked (website + app). You can limit the number of mobile devices that can be activated for one subscription – an easy edit in the WordPress dashboard.

PPD-ManageSubscription
Adding a mobile device to a subscription is an easy two-step process. Generate a token – type in the code on the mobile device.

If your publication is running WordPress and you have been considering giving apps to your readers, the time has come to check out UniPress. To see a UniPress app in action watch this 2:55 video: