Drip content on WordPress for Shopify members

Drip content opens on a schedule that is each member’s own: a lesson a week from the day they bought the course, or the back catalogue after a month of membership. With RedeemID, the schedule is a number of days on each post, and the start is the member’s join date.

1. Set the days on each post

Open the post and, in Who can read this, set Members can read it after to a number of days of membership. For a weekly course, give the lessons 0, 7, 14, 21 and so on. Quick Edit and Bulk Edit on the post list set it for many posts at once. See Who can read this post.

The days add to the post’s usual rule. A post for Gold members with 14 days opens for a Gold member on their fifteenth day, and never for a reader without Gold.

2. Decide where the start date comes from

A member’s count starts at the first of these that exists:

1. The membership.member_since customer metafield in Shopify, as a date. Set it from Shopify Flow or your subscription app when the membership starts, and the count is the same on every site and survives a reinstall. See Start and renewal dates.
2. When WordPress first saw their current level, from the level history that each sync keeps.
3. When they linked their Shopify account to WordPress.

Without the metafield, a long-standing member who signs in on WordPress for the first time starts at day 0. Set the metafield if that would be unfair to them.

What a member sees

A member who is early sees the post’s teaser and a message that says when it opens for them, such as “It opens for you on 12 March”. A reader without the level sees the usual panel to join or upgrade instead. An editor can check both with the toolbar’s Access menu.

Things to know

• Leaving resets the count. A member whose level ends and who joins again later starts over, unless the metafield keeps the original date.
• Buyers of a single post skip the wait. A post sold on its own opens for its buyers at once.
• A default for a whole post type isn’t a setting. A developer can set one with the redeemid_drip_days filter.
• Drip is not the archive window. To open old posts to everyone after a while, set the post type’s Opens after (days) on RedeemID → Access → Content rules instead. That counts from each post’s publish date, for everyone. See Paywall rules.

For a full course set-up, with protected worksheets and a plan card, see Sell course access with Shopify.

Written for: Membership sites, Course creators