Video guide
Prefer to watch? This short guide shows the visibility toggle — Public feed versus Subscribers only — plus the strict streaming-only option and the auto-unlock-after-a-time setting, so you can lock a post to your subscribers in a few clicks.
Subscriber-only feed posts are how you reward fans who pay for your subscription. Non-subscribers see the body text plus a 🔒 lock badge over the media and a Subscribe to unlock button. Subscribers see the full post — text, images, clip, all of it. This guide covers the toggle, the auto-unlock-after-time option, the strict streaming-only video setting, and how the paywall actually looks to non-subscribers.
1. Pre-requisite — you need an active subscription tier
Subscriber-only posts only make sense if fans have a way to subscribe in the first place. Before locking posts:
- Set up your subscription pricing on /store-manager/creator-subscriptions/ and enable at least one subscription plan. See Setting up your subscription tier for the full how-to.
- If you haven’t enabled a tier yet, you can still create subscriber-only posts — they just won’t have any subscribers to read them. The Subscribe to unlock button on the paywall will route fans to your storefront’s subscribe modal, which won’t open if you have no plan published.
2. The visibility toggle on the post form
On /store-manager/feed-posts/ open a new or existing post. Scroll to the section labelled Who can see this post? Two radio cards:
- Public feed — described as “Any logged-in fan can read and see your media.”
- Subscribers only — described as “Media is blurred for non-subscribers. Your text teaser still shows with a subscribe button.”
Click the Subscribers only card and the form reveals two extra controls below it: the strict streaming-only video toggle and the auto-unlock-after-time option (covered next).
3. Subscription video — streaming only, no download
A nested checkbox below the visibility radio. The full label reads “Subscription video — streaming only, no download” with an explanatory hint underneath.
When this toggle is ON:
- The post is forced to Subscribers only visibility (you can’t put a streaming-only video on a public post).
- Subscribers can watch the clip but the download button is hidden — they can only stream.
- The original file is removed from our storage after we encode the streaming version, so even an internal data export wouldn’t include the source file.
Use it for content where you want the strictest gate — content you don’t want even a paying subscriber to be able to download and re-share. For most subscriber-only posts the standard Subscribers-only setting (without this toggle) is fine; subscribers can still download then.
4. Auto-unlock for everyone after a specific time
The other nested option — a checkbox labelled “Auto-unlock for everyone after a specific time”. Tick it and a date-time picker appears labelled “Unlock date & time”. Pick a future moment.
The hint reads “After this time, the post becomes public automatically. Leave unchecked to keep it subscriber-only forever.”
What this gives subscribers:
- Early access to a piece of content that will eventually go fully public.
- Predictable timing — the unlock time is fixed when you publish; you can change it later but only by editing the post.
- Fairness if the content has a time-of-relevance — for example, a behind-the-scenes set you’ll release publicly when the related clip drops, but subscribers see now.
What it gives you:
- A way to keep the public feed fresh while rewarding subscribers with first-access.
- An easier sell on the subscription itself — fans can see your public feed and infer “if this is what’s free, the early-access stuff must be good.”
If you leave the auto-unlock toggle unchecked, the post stays subscriber-only forever. There’s no automatic expiry on a subscriber-only post; you’d have to manually flip it to Public via the visibility radio later.
5. What non-subscribers see — the paywall
Non-subscribers (and signed-out viewers, on storefront feeds where applicable) see the post in a “locked” state:
- Your avatar + display name + relative timestamp.
- A gold Subscribers only badge on the card.
- The first 300 characters of your body text — full teaser, same as a public post.
- Where the media should be: a 🔒 lock icon overlay. Images render as a blurred preview; clips render as a placeholder thumbnail with the lock icon.
- Below the locked media: a lock notice with the text “Subscribe to unlock the full post.” and a gold CTA button labelled Subscribe to unlock.
Click the CTA and the standard subscribe modal opens for that creator (same flow as the Follow Me / Subscribe button on your storefront).
6. What subscribers see
Subscribers see the post as if it were public — full body, full images, full clip, no lock indicators, no paywall. The card carries the same gold Subscribers only badge so they can tell at a glance which posts are part of their subscription benefit, but otherwise it’s identical to a public post for them.
Subscribers can like, comment, and tip subscriber-only posts the same as any public post. The tip flow works identically — see Letting fans tip your feed posts.
7. Editing the lock state after publish
You can change a post’s visibility at any time:
- Public → Subscribers only. Open the post, switch the radio, save. The post immediately re-locks for non-subscribers. (Some fans may have already seen the public version; you can’t take the cat back in the bag, but new viewers will see the gate.)
- Subscribers only → Public. Same flow in reverse. The post immediately unlocks for everyone. This is essentially a “manually flip the auto-unlock now” action.
- Toggle the Subscription video flag. Switching from the strict streaming-only mode back to standard download-allowed isn’t reversible if the original file has already been deleted from our storage (the encoded streaming version remains). Worth checking before you publish whether you want the original kept.
Edits take effect immediately for everyone viewing the post.
8. Patterns that work
A few patterns from creators who’ve grown subscriber lists with feed posts:
- Mix it 70/30. Roughly seven subscriber-only posts for every three public ones. Enough public content to stay visible to non-subscribers; enough subscriber content to feel worthwhile.
- Public teasers + subscriber payoffs. Public post: a great single image and a short caption. Subscriber-only follow-up post the next day: the full set, the long story.
- Use auto-unlock at 14 days as a default. Subscribers get 2 weeks of exclusivity; the public feed eventually gets the content too. Drives both subscribers (early access) and non-subscribers (eventually-something-good vibes) without locking content forever.
- Reserve streaming-only mode for premium drops. The “Subscription video — streaming only, no download” toggle is overkill for most posts. Save it for content you actively want to discourage re-sharing of (e.g. set photoshoots you co-own with another creator and have a re-share contract on).
9. FAQ
Q: I switched a post to Subscribers only but a non-subscriber says they can still see it. Why?
Browser cache. Their browser might be showing the previously-cached public version. Refreshing the page should pull the locked version. If they’re a subscriber and still can’t see it, check that the visibility actually saved (open the post, look at the radio).
Q: Does the lock apply to me too?
No. Logged in as the creator on your own storefront, you see all your own posts unlocked regardless of visibility — that’s so you can verify what’s in there. To see how a non-subscriber sees a locked post, sign out (or use a private window).
Q: Can I make a post visible to specific subscribers only?
No. The gate is binary: any active subscriber on any of your tiers can see all subscriber-only posts. There’s no per-tier or per-subscriber gating.
Q: If a subscriber’s subscription lapses, do they lose access to past subscriber-only posts?
Yes. Access is tied to the active-subscription state. The moment a sub lapses, the fan’s view of subscriber-only posts re-locks until they resubscribe. Past tips, likes, and comments stay visible.
Q: Does auto-unlock work retroactively?
Auto-unlock fires once the unlock time passes and stays unlocked from then on. There’s no need to manually edit the post; the visibility flips automatically. If you set auto-unlock for a time in the past (e.g. you forgot to set it at publish), the post unlocks as soon as you save the edit.
Q: Can I see who has read a subscriber-only post?
You can see the like + comment + tip counts on the post card same as any post. Per-subscriber read receipts aren’t surfaced. For subscriber list management see Setting up your subscription tier.
Q: What happens to scheduled subscriber-only posts when they go live?
They publish at the scheduled time as Subscribers only. Subscribers see them; non-subscribers see the locked card.
Q: Does locking a post hide it from search engines?
The feed itself isn’t indexed in a way that exposes individual locked posts. Even if a search engine had cached a public post URL, switching it to Subscribers only would lock the version a non-subscriber sees on click.
Need more help
For the post-form basics see Posting to your feed. For tipping see Letting fans tip your feed posts. For subscription tier setup see Setting up your subscription tier. For broken-feature reports open a ticket from Contacting support under Feed with the post ID.