Unpaywall

Paste a link. Read the article.

Open via archive.ph instead (better for NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg)

What is this?

Unpaywall opens news and magazine articles that are hidden behind soft paywalls, metered limits and “subscribe to continue” overlays. Paste a link and it fetches a readable copy, strips the pop-ups and scripts, and shows you the text. It’s for the moment you just want to read one article you were sent, without signing up for another subscription.

If a site blocks our server, you’ll get a one-click link to open the same article on archive.ph or the Wayback Machine from your own browser, which publishers rarely block.

A tip of the hat to 12ft.io, the original “ten-foot paywall, twelve-foot ladder” site that made this idea famous. This is a small, independent take on the same ladder.

Please support journalism you value and subscribe where you can. Some publishers’ terms restrict this kind of access, so use it responsibly.

Default tries Googlebot access, then archives, from our server. Big publishers block that, so we’ll offer an archive link from your own browser when it fails.