Paywall and Subscription System

A long-term client recently acquired a real estate guide website with an outdated design. The plan is to rework the website, modernize it, and add new features to make it more useful for users and easier to manage for the team. The website is well-known in the property industry, so it was important to keep the site reliable while making big changes.

The Challenge

1. Design modernization – The old design looked outdated and was not user-friendly. The client wanted a fresh, modern look that would make the site easier to use and more attractive to visitors.
2. Restructure and clean up hundreds of page templates and URL templates – The website had a lot of legacy code and templates, making it hard to maintain and update. Cleaning up and organizing these templates was a big task.
3. Switch from the current “priority placement” business model to a paywall-subscription model – The old business model was not working well anymore. The client wanted to introduce a paywall and subscription system to give users access to premium content and features.
4. Add new data to legacy pages – Many old pages needed to display new types of data, which required updating both the backend and frontend without breaking existing content.

My Approach & Solution

To address these challenges, I first spent time understanding how everything is interconnected on the website before making any changes. This helped avoid breaking important features.

After the planning and research, I started with rebranding and styling. I changed the font, redesigned the logo, improved element spacing, and picked a neutral color scheme to make the site look more modern and professional.

Outdated scripts and libraries were reworked and replaced with better alternatives. I redesigned the tables and graphs to be simpler and easier to read, which made the data clearer for users.

For the paywall and subscription system, I first created a system to accept recurring payments via Stripe, then integrated a third-party paywall software to control access to premium content. After a few months, I built an internal paywall system that was faster and more reliable, since the third-party solution was too limited for our needs.

I also reworked the membership model to fit the new paywall system and created a simple user dashboard so members can manage their subscriptions and access their content easily.

After a year, I developed a new payment system using the latest Stripe API, replacing the old Stripe-hosted checkout. This gave us more control and customization options for the payment process.

Tech Stack Used: Laravel, PHP, and JavaScript.

Features Developed

• Website Redesign – Modernized the look and feel of the website, making it more user-friendly and visually appealing.
• Observable Plot library for modern charts and graphs – Used this library to create clear and interactive data visualizations.
• Membership system – Built a flexible membership system to manage user access and subscriptions.
• Paywall system – Developed a custom paywall to control access to premium content and features.
• Checkout system – Integrated Stripe for secure and easy recurring payments, with a custom checkout flow for better user experience.