Charge for a document
Put a price on a document and readers pay before they can read it. The money goes to your Stripe account, not ours — your name on the buyer’s statement, your payouts, your VAT.
What a buyer sees
Section titled “What a buyer sees”- They open your share link and read the free preview — as much or as little as you choose.
- They hit Buy Now and pay on Stripe’s checkout page, which carries your business name.
- We email them a personal link that opens the whole document, on any device.
No account, no password, nothing to install. The link is theirs to keep.
Setting it up
Section titled “Setting it up”1. Connect Stripe
Section titled “1. Connect Stripe”Settings → Payments → Connect Stripe. You’ll be taken to Stripe to set up your account: business details, identity, and a bank account for payouts.
This is a real verification, not a form — Stripe needs to know who is taking the money. Set aside ten minutes and have your bank details to hand. You can leave and come back; the page shows exactly what’s still outstanding.
Until Stripe says you can take payments, the option to charge for a document stays switched off.
2. Price a document
Section titled “2. Price a document”On the document, open Access → Paid access:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Price | What a reader pays, in your chosen currency. Minimum £1 — below that, card fees cost more than the sale. |
| Free preview | Nothing, the cover only, or the first few pages. |
| Access expires | Off means buyers keep it forever. On limits them to a number of days. |
Turn the toggle on and it’s live at the same share link as before.
Choosing a preview
Section titled “Choosing a preview”The preview is what sells the document, so nothing is the hardest option — few people buy something they can’t see any of. The cover alone is enough for a report whose value is obvious from its title. First few pages works best for anything where the quality of the writing or design is the argument.
Payment replaces your other gates
Section titled “Payment replaces your other gates”A document has one gate, not two. Turning on paid access supersedes the password and the email gate on that document — checkout already captures an email address, so the gate would ask for something we already have.
Your sales
Section titled “Your sales”The document’s Access tab lists every sale: who bought it, what they paid, when, and when their access runs out. The totals count live sales only, so a refunded sale isn’t counted as revenue.
Refunds
Section titled “Refunds”Refund on any sale returns the money from your Stripe balance and revokes that buyer’s access immediately. Our fee is returned with it — we don’t keep a cut of a refunded sale.
A refund issued from your own Stripe dashboard works exactly the same way. Access is revoked either way.
What it costs
Section titled “What it costs”Living Page takes 2.5% of each sale. Stripe’s own processing fee comes out of your balance at your normal Stripe rate.
On a £12 document that’s 30p to us, and roughly 38p to Stripe.
Things worth knowing
Section titled “Things worth knowing”Buyers always get the current version. Replace the PDF and everyone who has bought it sees the new one. There’s no way to sell a specific edition.
Paid access is not retroactive. If a document has already been public, its pages may sit in caches elsewhere on the internet for some time. Adding a price stops new readers, but it can’t pull back what has already been out. If you plan to sell a document, price it before you publish it.
It’s share links only. A paid document can’t be embedded — checkout inside someone else’s page is a poor experience, and we’d rather not ship a broken one.
You are the seller. Your business name appears at checkout and on the receipt. Refunds, VAT and any dispute are yours, handled in your own Stripe account. We’re the platform, not a party to the sale — and the checkout page says so to your buyer.
Deleting a document your buyers have paid for takes their access with it. We’ll ask you to confirm, and tell you how many people it affects.