How to gate WordPress content with Shopify customer tags

A Shopify customer tag such as gold-member can decide what that customer reads on your WordPress site. The customer signs in to WordPress with their Shopify customer account, RedeemID mirrors the account’s tags on their WordPress user, and your rules open content for the tags they hold. Shopify stays the record: WordPress never grants access Shopify doesn’t know about.

What you need

• A Shopify store, and a WordPress site on PHP 8.2 or later with pretty permalinks.
• RedeemID installed and connected to the store. Install and Connect Shopify cover both; the setup wizard under RedeemID → Setup walks through them.
• Something that tags customers. Shopify Flow, a subscription app, or a person in the Shopify admin. RedeemID reads tags and never sets them.

1. Decide on the tags

Pick one tag per kind of access, in lower case: gold-member, course-bookkeeping, trade. Tags for complimentary access, such as gold-comp, keep a gift safe from any workflow that removes the paid tag. Tagging customers with Shopify Flow has workflows for one-off purchases, fixed terms and subscriptions.

2. Name a level

On RedeemID → Access → Levels, create a level such as Gold for customers tagged gold-member or gold-comp. Every gate and rule points at the level, not at the tags, so changing which tags count later is one edit. See Access levels.

3. Lock the content

Choose how much to lock:

• Part of a page: add a Membership gate block. Its members-only area is removed on the server for anyone without the level; its teaser shows to everyone.
• One post: set Who can read this in the editor’s sidebar.
• A whole section: give a category or tag a rule that requires the level.
• A whole post type: set it on Access → Content rules.

Locked content is removed before the page is built, so it never reaches the HTML, feeds, REST or search excerpts. See Paywall rules.

4. Check what each reader sees

RedeemID → Access → Test shows what any tag set, or any user, gets on any item, and why. The toolbar’s Access menu views a page as a locked visitor or as any level, for one request.

5. Bring customers in

Add the Shopify sign-in block to your header, and link the order confirmation in Shopify to the return link under RedeemID → Settings, so buyers come back signed in. See Selling memberships.

The limits

• Access changes when Shopify’s tag webhook reaches the site, usually within seconds. A customer who just paid can use the Refresh Membership block instead of waiting. See How changes reach WordPress.
• Tags never expire in WordPress. Something in Shopify has to remove them.
• Files linked from a locked post keep public URLs unless they are protected files.