Give Friends Free Access with Complimentary Subscriptions

By Rob Pugh on April 9, 2026

If you run a paid newsletter on WordPress.com, you’ve probably wanted to give someone free access to your paid content. A friend who supports your work. A fellow writer you admire. Your mom.

Now you can. Jetpack Newsletter offers complimentary subscriptions that let you give any subscriber free access to your paid plans, right from your subscriber list.

How it works

From your site’s dashboard, navigate to Jetpack → Subscribers. Find the subscriber you want to comp, click the three dots (⋮) next to their name, and select “Comp a subscription.”

Subscriber list showing the three-dot menu with the Comp a subscription option highlighted

Select the newsletter plan you want to give them access to and click Confirm.

They’ll get an email letting them know they have access to your paid content, and their subscription type changes to “Comp” on your Subscribers page.

You can also comp from the subscriber detail view: click on a subscriber’s name to open their profile, then click “Comp a subscription.”

You can comp free subscribers, email-only subscribers, and even people who aren’t currently subscribed (they’re added as a subscriber automatically). You can also remove a complimentary subscription anytime, and the subscriber reverts to free.

Reward your most important subscribers with free access

Once you have a paid newsletter, you’ll find plenty of reasons to comp people:

Family and friends you’d never charge
Fellow writers for cross-promotion
Contest winners and giveaway recipients
VIP readers you want to reward for loyalty
Sources and collaborators who contribute to your work

If you’ve migrated from another platform, you can use complimentary subscriptions to give your VIPs paid access right away.

Running a paid newsletter on WordPress.com

Complimentary subscriptions are one piece of the Jetpack Newsletter toolkit that keeps getting better. If you haven’t explored paid subscriptions yet, here’s what you can do right now on WordPress.com:

Create a paid newsletter on any WordPress.com plan, including free.
Set your own monthly and yearly pricing.
Collect payments through Stripe with creator-first pricing that doesn’t take a cut of your revenue.
Manage subscribers, track email performance, and organize content with newsletter categories.
Own your content and subscriber list. Export everything, anytime.

Keep more of what you earn

If you’re comparing paid newsletter platforms, pricing matters. WordPress.com takes 0-10% of your subscriber revenue based on your plan. Substack always takes 10%. That really adds up.

With 100 paid subscribers paying $10 per month, Substack’s cut is $100/month. With 1,000 subscribers, it’s $1,000/month. At 10,000, you’re handing Substack $10,000 every month.

On WordPress.com, your cost stays the same no matter how many subscribers you have.

Comparison table showing vast cost savings for WordPress.com vs. Substack.

The more you grow, the more you save. With 1,000 paid subscribers, you save $955 every month on WordPress.com. That’s the difference between a platform that scales with you and one that scales against you.

Get started

If you already have a paid newsletter on WordPress.com, complimentary subscriptions are available now in your Jetpack Newsletter subscriber list. No extra setup is needed.

If you’re on Substack or another platform and ready to make the switch, importing your newsletter takes just a few minutes. Bring your posts, your subscribers, and your paid plans with you.

Ready to try it? Head to your Jetpack Subscribers page to get started.