Due to popular demand, we have integrated an option for time-based content restriction when using Restrict with WooCommerce and this option is available from the version 2.1.2 of Restrict. Here’s a quick overview of this feature along with the example how to use it.

The idea and example

Let’s say, for example, that you’re selling online classes on your website and want to allow access to the content of your classes only if they have purchased a specific WooCommerce product and only during one month period. To do this, you can now simply create a page or post the content of which will be your class, and then select Specific product from the Content available to dropdown menu and select the required product. You will notice that there are two more options labeled as Duration. These options are Indefinitely and Limited time after purchase.

And while the Indefinitely option is quite self explanatory and basically does not set any time based limitation, the other option is where the things are getting interesting. If you select Limited time after purchase you will be able to set the number of days, hours and minutes. So, in our example, we have set that the content will be available to the user 30 days after they purchase the required product.

Additional options

In the example above, we have explained the most basic scenario of restricting the content of the page or post. However, the available options for this kind of restriction doesn’t stop here. You can also restrict the whole post category using the same criteria. This is particularly useful if you want to allow access to to the number of posts using the same, time-based restriction criteria. Also, the same can be applied to the widgets and menu items.

Conclusion

As you can see, setting up time-based content restriction is quite easy with Restrict and WooCommerce and you can set it all up in a matter of minutes. And while this is quite effective solution for the broad range of scenarios, if you need automatic renewals for continuous paid access to certain content, we suggest you to check our solution explained here.