Integrating Steady – this means integrating Steady features into your publication, like a Paywall, an exclusive Podcast feed or a floating button.

There are many ways to integrate Steady into your publication. And there are two very different reasons why you would do this:

You need to keep this in mind when considering which features fit your project. For example, even if you don't want to offer exclusive services right now, it's always good to promote your project.

Please note that for most types of integration (marked with * below), you must first add the Steady code to your website.

If nobody knows that you are offering memberships, who will support you? You need to get some eyeballs on your project. And we don’t mean as a one-off, but over and over again, even if you might feel like you’re overdoing it a bit at first.

Making your Steady project visible on your website is a very good place to start. You can use the following integrations throughout your publication to refer your audience to Steady:

IMPORTANT: On one page there can always only be one component at a time(This does not apply to the Login button, that one always works). If multiple components are integrated on the same page, there will be the following order of preference: Checkout -> Paywall -> Newsletter Layer -> Announcement Layer -> Adblock Detection

For example: https://www.example.com/test123 has our checkout integrated but you also added a paywall in your code. The paywall will not show up and you will only see the checkout. The same applies if you try to add a paywall and Adblock Detection, in this case only the paywall will be shown.

This does however not have an impact on other subdomains of your site. You can have a checkout on ...com/test123 and have a paywall on ..com/article1 and the Newsletter Layer on ..com/team and all of them will work.

A paywall hides selected content, like part of an article, on your website. The paywall is triggered as soon as a user has scrolled to a certain point in the text. It prompts them to become a member in order to continue reading. It is not displayed to members.

A soft paywall is permeable. This means that a user can click it away without first having to become a member of your publication. In this way you remind your audience that your content has value and that it is worth paying for. Many users will ignore this hint, but you should still be able to convince a decent proportion of your audience to become members.

You can configure your paywall in the publisher area.

The adblock detection is an overlay that is triggered when a visitor to your site is using an adblocker. You can decide the content of this message – of course, the best thing to do is suggest that your visitor becomes a member of your publication.

Embedding the Steady logo is another way to draw attention to your project. You can also add a link to your Steady page (steadyhq.com/yourpublication), either within some text, on a graphic you have created yourself, or with one of the button graphics we have prepared for you.

To offer your members exclusive benefits, use the following integrations:

Unlike a soft paywall, a hard paywall allows you to hide content (mostly text) and make it exclusively available to paying members. You can configure your paywall in the publisher area – to set up a hard paywall, make sure you have not ticked “Skip Paywall”.

If you use WordPress, you can also set up a paywall with the WordPress plugin – think about which alternative makes more sense for you.

You can also integrate paywalls in the posts you publish on the Steady Platform. Find out how to set up paywalls within Steady posts, and send out paywalled content to your newsletter subscribers in this article.

You can make podcast episodes (and other audio content) available exclusively to your members with a personal audio RSS feed.

Use the Steady Switch to ensure that certain content is only displayed to paying or non-paying users. For example, you can hide advertisements for paying members.

Your visitors can use the login button directly on your website to log in as Steady members (without having to leave your website). For visitors who are already logged in to their Steady account, the button turns into a logout.

The Steady Checkout enables your audience to become paying members directly on your website.

It’s easy to activate the checkout. Then the checkout with your plans will appear on your website – you can also specify where this should appear.

IMPORTANT: The checkout can only be displayed on the exact page you have connected to Steady – the URL you have entered in the your settings (under Integration > Setup). For example, if you entered http://meinewebsite.de there, the checkout will not work at https://meinewebsite.de.

If there are several URLs for a website (e.g. an http and an https version or versions with and without the prefix www.), we recommend redirecting all existing versions to one "correct" version (which you would then enter in the Publisher Dashboard). It is usually best to redirect all users to the secure https version. This also has advantages for SEO. Unfortunately, we can't help you configure the redirection – for this you need to contact your web host.

The Newsletter Signup Layer will let visitors leave their email addresses directly on your site. This will help you gather leads for newsletters or membership offers and sync them automatically with your Steady account.

You can enter one specific page (https://example.com/pages/this_one) or use asterisks (*) to specify a family of pages (https://example.com/articles/* which will match URLs such as https://example.com/de/articles/newest_article.html)

The Announcement Layer is an overlay displayed on your website. You can use it to highlight important updates or make special offers.

In order to use the Steady API, you will need some knowledge of programming. If you have worked with a REST API before, this should be quite straightforward.

The Steady API is an interface to our system that allows you to access data about your publication, your plans and your members. You can then use this to display certain things on your website, for example:

You can also use the interface to enable your members to log in to your site or app with their Steady account (OAuth 2.0).

For detailed documentation, see the API Developer Reference.

* requires the Steady code

** requires Steady Code and login feature

Got a question we haven’t answered in our Help Centre? You can contact us at support@steadyhq.com.