TL;DR: How to Lock Content in WordPress
A content lock hides part of a post until the reader does something to open it, like joining your email list. To lock a bonus with Thrive Leads:
- Create a lead shortcode and name it after your bonus
- Turn on content locking
- Add a form from any template
- Write the form and connect your sign-ups
- Copy the shortcode
- Wrap it around the bonus in your post
- Check it as a visitor
Want to lock content people pay for instead? Here's the members lock in Thrive Apprentice. And here's how the big publishers do it.
People read your best posts. They get to the end, nod along and leave, and most of them never come back. You'd love a few of them to join your email list, but the form in your sidebar is easy to ignore.
A content lock gives them a reason to sign up, right when they're most interested. You add a bonus that belongs with the post (a checklist, a template, a few extra steps), and readers unlock it with their email address. The post stays open to everyone, and only the bonus waits behind the form.
In this tutorial, you'll learn what to lock and what to leave open, how to set up a content lock with Thrive Leads, how to lock content for paying members with Thrive Apprentice, and how to keep it all SEO-safe.
I built both locks on Tallwick Consulting, a one-person consultancy I made up for these tutorials (it isn't a real business). You might know it from the opt-in form tutorial. Its blog has a post called "Why Your Quotes Get Ignored", and under it, I locked a bonus: the three follow-up emails to send when a quote goes quiet.
What a Content Lock Is (and Why Big Publishers Still Use One)
A content lock hides part of a web page until the visitor does something to open it, usually joining an email list or signing in as a member. The rest of the page stays open, so readers can see what they're getting before they decide whether it's worth it.
There are two kinds, and this tutorial covers both:
And if you're wondering whether readers still put up with locks, the big news sites use them every day. When I opened an article on The Independent in November 2026, I could read most of the story, and then it stopped: "Register for free to continue reading", with a short sign-up form. That's an email lock.
It makes sense when you look at what people pay for. Across 20 countries where publishers push digital subscriptions, only 18% of people paid for online news in the last year, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025. In the US, it was 20%. So a free sign-up is a much smaller step to ask for than money.
You'll find three more real examples further down.
Lock the Bonus, Not the Whole Post
Your post should stay open. It's what brings readers in from Google, and it's how they get to know you. What you lock is the extra thing that helps them act on what they just read. Most good bonuses look like one of these:
The bonus has to fit the post. Tallwick's post is about quotes clients never answer, so the bonus is the three emails to send when that happens. Someone who just read the post wants those emails now, so an email address feels like a fair trade.
What you shouldn't lock is the answer people came for. If someone searches "how to follow up on a quote" and finds the answer locked, they'll feel tricked, and they'll leave.
Start with a post that already gets steady traffic. That's where your lock gets seen, and where you'll find out fastest whether readers want the bonus.
Need ideas? This guide to content upgrades helps you pick the right bonus for a post, and the guide to lead magnets covers what makes a freebie worth signing up for.
How to Lock Content for an Email With Thrive Leads (On a Real Post)
I built Tallwick's lock in Thrive Leads, which you can get on its own or as part of Thrive Suite. Before you start, have two things ready:
Step 1: Create a Lead Shortcode and Name It After Your Bonus
Go to Thrive Dashboard → Thrive Leads → My Forms and open the Lead Shortcodes tab. A lead shortcode is a form you place yourself, exactly where you want it, and that's what a lock needs. Click Create New Shortcode.
Lead Shortcodes has its own tab under My Forms.
Give it a name you'll recognize later and click Create Shortcode. I called mine "Quote follow-up emails (locked bonus)".
Name it after the bonus, so it's easy to find later.
Step 2: Turn On Content Locking (It's One Switch)
Your new shortcode now has its own row in the list. On the right, under Content Locking, turn the switch on. It saves straight away.
The Content Locking switch turns an ordinary form into a lock.
Hover over the little "i" next to Content Locking and Thrive Leads sums it up: with it on, visitors have to submit the form to unlock and see the protected content.
Step 3: Add a Form From Any Template
Click + Add form in the shortcode's row. Pick a template and click Use Template. Any template works for a lock, so pick one that suits your site. I searched for "Corporate" and chose Corporate 1-step, which has one email field and one button.
Any template works. One field and one button is plenty for a bonus.
Name the form and click Save Form & Proceed. The form opens in Thrive Architect, right inside Thrive Leads.
Step 4: Write the Form Around the Bonus and Connect Your Sign-Ups
Make the form about the bonus, not your newsletter. Readers can't see what's locked, so the form has to tell them. Here's what Tallwick's says:
Under After successful submission, I left Show success notification on and changed its message to "Thanks! The three emails are unlocked below."
Next, tell Thrive Leads where to send the sign-ups. Click the form, then Add Connection in the left panel.
Add Connection is where you choose where sign-ups go.
On your own site, pick your email marketing service here, so new subscribers go straight onto your list. Tallwick doesn't have one, so I picked Email, Thrive's built-in option that emails you each new sign-up, and set it to send them to Tallwick's own address.
The built-in Email option sends each sign-up to the address you choose.
When the form looks right, click Save Work, then Finish form creation at the top. Thrive Leads publishes the form.
Finish form creation publishes the form, so it's ready to use.
Step 5: Copy the Two-Part Shortcode
Back in Lead Shortcodes, click Copy Shortcode in your shortcode's row. (It stays grayed out until the form is published.) Because content locking is on, the shortcode comes in two parts, with the words "Hidden Content" in the middle:
[thrive_lead_lock id='455']Hidden Content[/thrive_lead_lock]
Your number will be different from Tallwick's 455.
With content locking on, Copy Shortcode gives you an opening part and a closing part.
Step 6: Wrap the Shortcode Around Your Bonus
Open your post. Above the bonus, add one line that tells readers what's coming, and don't skip it. The lock hides the bonus completely and puts the form in its place, so this line and your form's headline are all readers have to go on. Tallwick's says: "These are the three emails I send after a quote goes out, word for word. Swap in the client's name and project and they're ready to go."
Then split the shortcode. Everything between the opening part and the closing part gets locked, and the "Hidden Content" placeholder can go. I locked the same bonus on two Tallwick posts, one built in Thrive Architect and one in the WordPress block editor, so here's how it works in both.
In Thrive Architect: click Add Element (the + in the right sidebar) and drag a Text element in just above the bonus.
A Text element goes in the gap just above the first email.
Click into it and paste the opening part:
[thrive_lead_lock id='455']
The opening part, in its own Text element right above the bonus.
Then add a second Text element after the last part of the bonus, with the closing part:
[/thrive_lead_lock]
The closing part, in a Text element right after the bonus.
Click Save Work. While you're editing, the two parts just look like text, and the lock only shows on the live post (or in Preview). One element to skip here: Thrive Leads Shortcode. It adds the form to your post, but it doesn't lock anything.
In the WordPress block editor: add a Shortcode block just above the bonus, with the opening part.
In the block editor, the opening part goes in a Shortcode block above the bonus.
Add a second Shortcode block after the last email, with the closing part.
The closing part goes in a second Shortcode block right after it.
Then update the post.
Step 7: Check It as a Visitor (Then Reload)
Open the post in a private browser window, so you see it the way a new reader does. The bonus is gone, and the form sits in its place.
What a new reader sees: the line about the bonus, then the form. The emails are hidden, and the next part of the post follows straight after.
Sign up with a test email address. The bonus opens right away, under a "Content unlocked" note, and your success message pops up.
Right after signing up, the first email is there to read.
Now reload the page. The bonus should still be open, with no form. Thrive Leads remembers that this browser signed up, for a year, so readers don't have to unlock it again every time they come back.
How to Lock Content for Members With Thrive Apprentice (For What People Pay For)
An email lock is for content you're happy to give away. For content people pay for, like a template library, a course or a members' area, use a members lock instead. Only members can open it, and everyone else sees a message you write.
You can set that up in Thrive Apprentice. For Tallwick, I made a small product called the Client Toolkit and locked one page to it, "Client Toolkit: Proposal Templates".
First, go to Thrive Apprentice → Products, add a product and add the content it unlocks. I used Add Other Content to add the page.
Anything you add to a product is locked to it.
Then decide what people without access see. In the product's Access restriction rules, click the setting next to "User not logged in" and choose Display custom content. Edit with Thrive Architect opens the message, so you can write your own. I did the same for "Not yet purchased".
Choose what visitors without access see, then write it in Thrive Architect.
Here's what a visitor sees on Tallwick's page: the title, then a short message on what's inside, a button to get the toolkit and a link to sign in.
The members page, for anyone without access.
And here's the same page for a member. I added a test member by hand, under Members → Add member, to check it.
The same page, signed in as a member.
There's one more difference worth knowing. When I checked the page's code as a signed-out visitor, the templates weren't there at all, only the message. With Thrive Leads, the locked part is in the page's code, just hidden (more on that in the SEO section). So anything people pay for belongs behind a members lock.
On Tallwick, the button goes nowhere, because a demo site can't take payments. On your site, it would point to your checkout or sales page. The membership site tutorial walks through the rest, from payments to the members' area.
Real Content Locks You've Probably Hit Already
If you read online, you've run into content locks, probably this week. Here are four I opened in November 2026 as an ordinary visitor, signed out, without typing anything. Two of them ask for an account, and two ask you to pay or start a trial.
The Independent: Register for Free to Keep Reading
The Independent let me read most of an article, then stopped with "Register for free to continue reading" and a short form: first name, email address, password and year of birth. That's an email lock on a big news site, and it's free.
It doesn't show every time, though. When I went back later, and when I opened another article the same day, both read in full. So The Independent seems to show its lock to some readers, some of the time, which is a gentler way to ask.
Medium: A Free Account Before the Rest of the Story
On a member-only story, Medium shows you the opening and fades out the last few lines, so you can see the story keeps going. Then: "Create an account to read the full story." If you're new to Medium, it offers you that story for free once you've made an account. So the first thing Medium asks for is an email address, and paid membership comes later.
A member-only story on Medium: the opening, then a free account to read the rest.
Lenny's Newsletter: Paid Subscribers Only
Lenny's Newsletter, a Substack newsletter for people who build products, shows the first part of its paid posts, then "This post is for paid subscribers", with a Subscribe button and a sign-in link for people who already pay. That's a members lock, like Tallwick's Client Toolkit.
A paid post on Lenny's Newsletter: a preview, then paid subscribers only.
The Atlantic: Sign In or Start a Free Trial
The Atlantic shows the opening of the story, with a bar along the bottom of the screen: "To read this story, sign in or start a free trial." It's a paywall, but it leads with a free trial instead of a price.
What I'd Copy From All Four
On a blog, that's a bonus under a post people already find useful, with a form that asks for one thing: an email address.
Will Locking Content in WordPress Hurt Your SEO?
This question comes up every time I talk about content upgrades, and I understand why. The last thing you want is to finally get a post ranking, only to tank it by hiding too much behind a form.
The good news is, locking content isn't a threat to your SEO when you use it intentionally. A few simple rules keep everything safe:
There's one more thing I found while building Tallwick's lock. With Thrive Leads, the locked part is still in the page's code. It's hidden from view until the reader signs up, but it's there, so Google can read it even though a new visitor can't.
Google has a help page for this kind of content, Subscription and paywalled content. It covers content that's paywalled "or requires a subscription or registration", and it suggests marking the locked part with structured data. That markup tells Google the page isn't completely free and points to the locked part by its class name, so Google can tell it apart from cloaking (showing Google something different from what readers see, which breaks its spam policies). Thrive Leads already gives the locked part a class you can use: tve_lead_locked_content.
For a small bonus under an open post, I'd stick to the three rules above. If you lock a big part of a page, add the markup too.
Frequently Asked Questions About Content Locking
These are the questions people ask most about content locks. Each one links to its answer:
What Is Content Locking?
Content locking means hiding part of a web page until the visitor does something to open it, usually joining an email list or signing in as a paying member. The rest of the page stays open, so readers can see what they'll get before they decide. In WordPress, Thrive Leads handles email locks and Thrive Apprentice handles members locks.
Does Locking Content Hurt SEO?
Not if you keep the main content open and lock only a bonus. Use an inline lock inside the post rather than a full-screen blocker on phones. If you lock a big part of a page, add Google's paywalled content markup, so Google can tell your lock apart from cloaking.
What's the Difference Between a Content Lock and a Paywall?
A paywall is a content lock that asks for money. An email lock asks for an email address instead, so it's free for the reader and grows your list. With Thrive Leads, the locked part stays in the page's code, just hidden, so use it for bonuses you'd give away, and use a members lock in Thrive Apprentice for anything people pay for.
Do Readers Have to Unlock It Again Next Time?
No. Once someone signs up, Thrive Leads remembers their browser for a year, so the bonus stays open when they come back. On a different browser or device, or after clearing their cookies, they'll see the form again.
What Should I Lock?
Something small and useful that belongs with the post: a checklist, a template, a script, an extra example or a PDF version. Keep the answer people came for open, and lock the bonus that helps them act on it.
Start With One Bonus on Your Best Post
You don't need to lock much to see if it works. Pick a post that already gets steady traffic, write one small bonus that helps readers act on it, and lock it with a one-field form. Then keep an eye on the numbers in Lead Shortcodes: how many people saw the form, and how many unlocked the bonus. If readers want it, add a bonus to your next best post. If they don't, try a different bonus on the same post.
If you want to keep going:
Ready to Lock Yours With Thrive?
Tallwick's email lock was built in Thrive Leads, with the form designed in Thrive Architect, and the members lock in Thrive Apprentice. All three are part of Thrive Suite. You can see more of what a Thrive Leads lock can do on the content lock page.
Your best posts already have readers. Give them one good reason to join your list.
