Control who can see each page in a Deal Room
Gate an individual Deal Room page to an allow-list of verified email addresses, so only named stakeholders ever see it.
Control who can see each page in a Deal Room
About This Feature
Page gating lets you restrict a single page of a Deal Room to a specific list of email addresses. Everyone still opens the same Deal Room link, and that link keeps working exactly as before — but a gated page is simply absent for any viewer whose verified address isn't on its list. They don't see a locked page or an error; they never see the page at all.
This is how you keep pricing, security reviews, or legal terms in the same room as everything else while only the people who should read them ever know they're there.
Snapshot 📸
Feature Status: Included with Deal Rooms (Add-On)
Role Access: Admin, Editor — anyone who can edit the Deal Room's pages
Location: Deal Room editor → page list in the side nav → page's ⋯ menu → Gate page
Before You Start
Page gating keys on a verified email address, so the Deal Room has to be asking for an address and proving it. Both of these must be on:
- Collect viewers email set to Required (the Email Gate)
- Email Verification enabled for the room
Until both are on, the gate switch is disabled and Walnut explains why. A gated page without them would be hidden from everyone — including the people on its list.
You can turn both on without leaving the gate modal: flip Collect and verify emails for the whole Deal Room in the warning callout.
⚠️ Read this before you flip it. That switch is room-wide. Every page in the Deal Room will start asking viewers to confirm their address, not just the one you're gating. And it's one-way by design: removing the page gate later leaves those settings on, so that ungating a page never silently drops the room's email gate. Turn them back off yourself in Settings if you want them off.
You can also set them the long way round — the gear icon in the editor's top bar → Collect viewers email → Required, then Email Verification.
Quick Start Guide
1. Open the page's menu
In the Deal Room editor, find the page in the side nav. Open its ⋯ context menu and choose Gate page.
The modal is scoped to that one page — the page you picked is the page it acts on.
2. Turn gating on
Flip the switch next to the page name.
Gating starts with an empty list, which means the page is gated and visible to nobody. That's deliberate — it's the safe direction. Nothing is exposed while you're still typing addresses in.
3. Add the people who should see it
Under Who can see this page, type an address and click Add. Repeat for each stakeholder.
Only these people see the page, and only once they've verified that address. Everyone else opens the same Deal Room link and never sees the page.
To take someone off, click the ✕ next to their address.
4. Close
Click Done. The page's tab now carries an Email gated badge so you can see at a glance which pages are restricted.
What Your Viewers Experience
- A viewer opens your Deal Room link — the normal link, unchanged.
- They're asked for their email address and to confirm it (the room's Email Gate plus Email Verification).
- Once verified, they see every shared page, plus any gated page whose list includes their verified address.
- A gated page they're not on is invisible. There's no locked state, no "request access", no hint that the page exists.
A viewer who verifies at the Deal Room level doesn't have to verify again for each demo inside it — one verification covers the room.
Testing Your Own Gate
This is the part that trips people up, so the modal states it outright.
The gate reads the address this browser has verified, which is not necessarily the address you're logged into Walnut with, and not the one you typed at the gate either. Under Who can see this page you'll see one of:
- "You're signed in as name@company.com, which is on the list — you'll see [page] in the Deal Room."
- "You're signed in as name@company.com, which is not on the list — so [page] stays hidden from you too. Being the author or on the invite list doesn't count; the gate reads only the address."
- "You aren't identified by any address, so [page] is hidden from you in the Deal Room."
Being the author of the Deal Room does not exempt you. If you test your own gate and the page vanishes, that is usually the feature working correctly — check the line above against the list before reporting it as a bug.
Gating vs. Hiding a Page
Both live in the same ⋯ menu and they do opposite kinds of thing:
| Gate page | Hide Page | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees it | Only the verified addresses you list | Nobody — it's taken away from every viewer |
| What it's for | Naming an audience | Taking a page out of circulation |
| Shows on the tab as | Email gated | Hidden |
The Last Shared Page Rule
Every Deal Room needs at least one page that stays shared and visible — it's where your public link lands. Walnut refuses the change and tells you:
At least one page has to stay shared — it is where your public link lands.
If every other page in the room is hidden, you'll be asked to unhide one first before you can restrict the page you're on.
FAQs
Does gating a page change my Deal Room link? No. The link is unchanged and still works for everyone. Gating only decides who sees the gated page once they're inside.
Can someone forward the link to get around the gate? No. The gate is enforced on the server — a restricted page is removed from the payload before it ever leaves Walnut. Holding the link isn't the credential; the verified address is.
What if a viewer types a colleague's address? They'd have to be able to receive the verification email sent to it. An unverified address grants nothing.
Does being signed in to Walnut count as verification? Only for your own address, and only once your Walnut account itself is confirmed. Signing in as one address never grants access to a page gated to a different one. See Email Gates.
I see a "Link only" label on a page tab. What is that? That's a read-only indicator for a legacy page restriction created with an older share-specific-pages link. Those links keep working, but no new ones can be created — the per-page gate replaced them. To clear a legacy restriction, contact Walnut support.
Why is the gate switch greyed out? Either the room's Collect viewers email / Email Verification settings aren't both on (see Before You Start), or you don't have permission to change page access in this room.
Can I turn the room's email gate back off after removing all page gates? Yes — but you have to do it yourself in Settings. Removing a gate never turns it off for you. Walnut will refuse to switch it off while any page gate is still standing, and tells you which: "Some pages in this Deal Room are gated to specific email addresses, which needs Email Verification. Remove those page gates before switching it off."
Related to:
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