How to Read Slate Without a Slate Plus Membership
Slate meters its website and sells Slate Plus for unlimited access. Here is how the Slate paywall works and how to read its advice columns, politics and culture pieces in full.
Paywall behaviour last tested
Slate was one of the first web-native magazines, and for twenty years it was entirely free. Today it meters its website and sells Slate Plus, a membership that removes the limit, adds bonus podcast episodes and strips out advertising. If you clicked through to a Dear Prudence column or a Slow Burn transcript and hit a "You've read your free articles" screen, this guide explains how to read the rest.
How the Slate paywall works
Slate uses a metered paywall. Readers without a Slate Plus membership get a limited number of free articles a month, tracked in a cookie, after which the article body is hidden and a membership offer appears. Readers outside the United States have historically faced a stricter meter than US readers.
Slate delivers the complete article in the page for search engines and applies the meter with a script in the browser. A reader that fetches the page the way a crawler does gets the full text without touching the meter. In our latest test, an 860-word Slate advice column loaded in full through Skip the Paywall.
Read a Slate article in full
- Copy the article link. Slate links look like slate.com/section/2026/09/headline-slug.html.
- Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
- The article appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.
What works and what does not
- Articles, advice columns and podcast transcripts load completely.
- Slate Plus bonus podcast segments are audio and members-only; there is no text to extract.
- Live blogs and interactive pieces are stripped to their text and may read oddly.
Similar sites
Slate sits in a group of web-native opinion and culture magazines with the same kind of paywall. New York Magazine and The New Republic both load in full through the reader. Vox remains free. The Atlantic, which many readers pair with Slate, blocks automated access and does not work. Our explainer on metered versus hard paywalls lists which titles fall where.
Other approaches
- Private windows reset the cookie-based meter and still work on slate.com.
- Slate's podcasts are free on every podcast app; only the Plus bonus segments are locked.
Support Slate if you read it often
Slate Plus is one of the cheaper memberships in digital media and includes ad-free reading and bonus podcast episodes. If Slate's columns or podcasts are a daily habit, that is the fair way to pay for them.
Try it with an article
Paste the URL of an article from Slate and read it in a clean reader view. Free, instant, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
How many free articles does Slate allow per month?
Slate does not publish a fixed number and adjusts it over time. The meter has historically been stricter for readers outside the United States.
Does Slate Plus remove ads?
Yes. Slate Plus removes advertising on the site, adds bonus podcast content and removes the article limit.
Can I read Dear Prudence for free?
Dear Prudence columns are ordinary Slate articles and count against the meter. Pasting the column link into the reader returns the full text.