Triggers

Triggers tell OnePaywall which URLs should show a gate. You configure triggers on the Triggers tab of any gate.

Rule types

Exact path

Matches a single URL exactly.

/articles/my-article-slug

Use this for specific premium content you want to gate individually.

Path prefix

Matches any URL that starts with the given path.

/articles/*
/premium/*
/members/*

The * wildcard matches anything after the prefix. This is the most common rule type for section-wide gating.

Domain-wide

Use * alone to gate every page on the domain (except pages on your free pages list).

Rule priority

When a URL matches multiple rules, the most specific rule wins:

1. Exact path (highest priority)
2. Path prefix (longer prefixes win over shorter ones)
3. Domain-wide (lowest priority)

Examples

Goal	Rule
Gate all articles	/articles/*
Gate a specific post	/articles/my-premium-post
Gate everything except the homepage	* + add / to Free Pages
Gate a tag archive	/tag/premium/*

Combining rules

A gate can have multiple trigger rules — the gate fires if any rule matches the current URL. This lets you gate multiple sections with a single gate configuration.