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Book a demoSubscriptions vs Entitlements in Glide Nexa: which does what, and why you need both
In Glide Nexa, a Subscription records what someone has signed up for and how long it lasts, while an Entitlement says what and how much they can access. Combining the two gives enormous flexibility to anyone giving content or access to audiences.
The important bits
- A Subscription notes what plan or payment model someone is on, and the level and duration of their subscribed status. An Entitlement shows what they can access and what privileges they have while they are subscribed. The two are independent but work in tandem to allow highly-tailored subscription access and offers control.
- A Subscription includes default Entitlements which are granted automatically or removed by Nexa when the subs end.
- An Entitlement can be unlimited, limited, metered, or blocked. Metering sets an allowance within a timeframe, such as five free articles per week.
- Offers can create a deal for a Subscription or an Entitlement, depending on who you target it to. A subscribed user could be offered a new deal, an extension, or better access, while an entitlement offer may give special access to a new product or section for a fixed or extended period.
On many sites, a subscription and access to content are treated as the same thing. A user pays, so gets access, and when the plan ends, access ends too. It's very in or out, and it badly limits the flexibility a business can offer to customers and subscribers. Even straightforward offers or deals such as an upgrade for signed-up users or a new tier of membership can be very hard to manage, or not justifiable for the hassle it creates.
The Glide Nexa audience interaction platform helps split and segment subscriptions and entitlements with much more sophistication. Nexa allows you to tie each user's identity, interactions, preferences and access to a single profile your organisation owns, and helps eliminate fragmented first-party data storage and accessibility.
This Glide Nexa expert guide is for subscriptions, content, and commercial teams in any organisation which offers subscriptions and sign-ups, or grants access via things like free allowances, sponsor-backed passes, event passes, or loyalty upgrades.
What a subscription does in Glide Nexa
In Glide Nexa, a Subscription is the commercial relationship: the plan someone is on and how long it lasts, such as a Premium Monthly plan, an annual membership, or a tournament pass. A subscription can expire, be withdrawn or cancelled, or carry a grace period.
Admins can see a person’s subscriptions on a profile page, and Nexa’s Offers conversion engine can let you display a subscription for a set duration. A payment provider can keep subscription status current through Nexa’s API, so nobody has to reconcile records platform by platform.
Nexa’s event system fires an event when a subscription is assigned, expires or is cancelled. A webhook can pass that event to a payment provider, with an email alert to an account manager.
What an entitlement does in Glide Nexa
In Glide Nexa, an Entitlement is a specific right to access something, such as premium content, the archive, or a members’ resource library, and it can be unlimited, metered, or blocked.
For a metered entitlement Nexa sets an access allowance for a signed-in user over time or frequency, such as per day, week, or month, and by article or view count, and will allow repeat viewing of the same piece of content without burning down an allowance so a reader doesn't get blocked for reading the same thing a few times.
For better security against bots or attempts at link-sharing, Glide Verify, a server-side content gating layer in Glide CMS, checks entitlements server-side before content is ever sent to an API. Entitlements can also be bundled into Entitlement Groups, which bundle access rights and are separate from User Groups, which organise people info cadres or cohorts. Nexa fires an event when any entitlement is assigned or revoked, updating that person's access rights, while any free allowance is kept as a setting on the Entitlement itself.
How Subscriptions and Entitlements work together
Assigning a subscription grants the entitlements bundled with it, any or all of which Nexa can remove when the subscription expires.
For an example, we'll look at a case where a Premium monthly subscription has bundled together two entitlements to raise it above the standard monthly subscription. Access to Premium Articles is unlimited, while Archive Access is metered at 10 articles a month. A user who takes the Premium subscription gets both, while a reader on the standard subscription sees only part of what the Premium subscriber can see.
Subscription vs Entitlement at a glance
| Subscription | Entitlement | |
| Question it answers | What plan are they on? When does it end? How much? | What can they see or do on the site or app? |
| Think of it as | A membership, plan, or pass | A permission or feature flag |
| Timeline | Has a duration, can expire or be cancelled, can have a grace period | Granted or removed, controlled by Subscription |
| Direction | Sits above Entitlements, is not controlled by Entitlements | Sits below Subscription, does not control Subscription |
| Bundles access | Yes, can group access to multiple entitlements | No: each is individual |
| Events | Assigned, allowed, expired, cancelled | Ungated, used, timed out, revoked |
The practical rule is to check Entitlements for access rights and Subscriptions for billing status.
The benefit of both Subscriptions and Entitlements
With Subscriptions alone, new or special offers like a free allowance or a sponsor-backed pass have to be modelled as complete standalone subscription plans, a major task and one which can distort data on people who pay and people who do not. With Entitlements alone, there is no record of what someone signed up for, just that they could see something, so something like a win-back Offer cannot be pointed at someone whose subscription has expired or to elevate them from free to paid.
By combining the power of both an offer can give a registered user a metered entitlement without the need for a subscription, such as a free monthly allowance, and a subscriber can be offered crafted bundles that strike right at the heart of what they like on your site.
Upgrade and win-back targeting with Offers, audience research with Polls & Surveys
Because both payment and access are part of a person’s profile, Offers can combine them. An upgrade offer can target users who hold for example a free-allowance entitlement but lack a subscription, and a win-back offer can target users whose subscription has lapsed. Offer rules combine with AND logic so a user presented with the deal meets every condition you set. Audience polls for engagement or market research can benefit from the same subscription and entitlement conditions for hyper-accurate serving. None of the deals or offers needs a separate audience list, because Nexa already holds everything in one place.
Deployment and licence
For organisations running Glide CMS, Glide Nexa integrates natively on a separate licence. On other platforms, it deploys standalone and connects through its SDK and REST APIs.
To explore how Glide Nexa can manage subscriptions and entitlements for your audience, connect with a Glide Nexa product specialist.
Common questions about subscriptions and entitlements in Glide Nexa
What is the difference between a Subscription and an Entitlement in Glide Nexa? A Subscription is the plan someone is on. An Entitlement is what they can access.
What is an Entitlement in Glide Nexa? Entitlement is a specific right to access something, such as premium content, the archive, or a members' resource library. It can be unlimited, limited, metered, or blocked.
Do I need both Subscriptions and Entitlements? No, but they combine to better effect. With subscriptions alone, every different kind of access has to be a different subscription plan in your system. With entitlements alone, there is no record of the sign-up details for the person. Using both together lets offers target users by subscription and by access.
What is a metered entitlement? A metered entitlement sets an allowance over a timeframe, per day, week, or month, and/or meters access by, say, article count, hours watched, or services used.
What happens when a subscription expires? Nexa removes any entitlements granted with the subscription and fires a [subscription expired] event to the audience platform.
Related articles:
- How Glide Nexa lets you model audience data the way you want
- Audience registration walls: how Glide Nexa turns anonymous traffic into known users
- Entitlement management for content: How Glide Nexa unifies subscriptions, access, and content gating
