Rentals give you another way to earn from your content. Instead of buying permanent access, viewers pay less to watch for a limited time. You decide the price and how long renters have to watch.
You can offer rentals on presentations and on single videos.
Step 1: Open the Paywall settings
From your dashboard, find the presentation or video you want to rent out.
Open it and click Monetize, or choose Monetize from the ⋮ menu on its tile.
Turn on Enable Paywall.
Step 2: Find the Pricing section
The Pricing section is where you choose your currency and set prices for buying and renting.
Step 3: Set your rental price
Pricing has two sections, each with its own switch:
Buy: viewers keep access permanently.
Rent: viewers watch for a limited time.
Turn on Rent and enter the rental price. MediaZilla suggests a rental price of about a third of your purchase price. Click Use to take the suggestion.
You can turn Buy off to offer rentals only. At least one of Buy or Rent must stay on.
Good to know: on paid plans, MediaZilla charges 0% commission on rentals, the same as purchases. During a free trial, a 15% commission applies. Stripe also deducts its processing fee.
Step 4: Set the rental viewing period
By default, renters have:
30 days to start watching after renting.
48 hours to finish watching once they first press play.
To change these, click Change under the rental price and enter:
Days to start watching: any number from 1 to 365.
Hours to finish once started: any number from 3 to 336 (14 days).
For example, with 48 hours to finish, a viewer who starts watching on Friday at 7:00 PM has until Sunday at 7:00 PM. They can watch as many times as they like in that window. When it ends, the rental ends.
MediaZilla warns you if the rental price is at or above the purchase price, or if the viewing window is shorter than the content itself.
Step 5: Know what renters can't do
Renters can't download rented content.
Renters can't buy add-ons. To buy an add-on, a viewer buys the presentation first.
Step 6: Save your changes
Review your settings and click Save Changes.
Seeing your renters
On the item's Access page, renters show the source Paywall rental. Their status reads Rental not started, Rental active or Rental expired. See Understanding the Access page.
The Sales tab splits revenue and sales into Buy and Rent. See How do I track sales for a presentation or video?
👉 What your viewers see: How does renting work?