Membership

Break builds a pricing page out of the tiers you have already set up in Ghost. You create one page, and the tier cards keep themselves in sync with your prices, trials and benefits. Everything you write in the page body is placed below the cards, which makes it a good place for an FAQ.

Setup Instructions#

1. Go to Pages → New page
2. Enter a page title, for example Membership
3. Open Page settings and change Page URL to membership
4. Optionally add a description in the Excerpt field
5. Click Publish

The tier cards appear on their own. There is no card to insert in the editor.

The subscribe section that closes every other page of the site is left off this page, since the tier cards already do that job.

Where the Prices Come From#

Everything on the cards is read from Ghost:

1. Navigate to ⛭ Settings → Membership → Tiers
2. Connect Stripe if you have not already, otherwise only the free tier exists
3. Click Add tier, or open an existing one
4. Fill in the fields below and click Save

The free tier shows $0. The page shows up to three public tiers, ordered by monthly price from cheapest to most expensive, so the free tier comes first. Tiers you have hidden from the public are left out, and if you run more than three public tiers only the first three appear.

The Monthly and Yearly Switch#

A Monthly and Yearly switch above the cards lets readers compare the two prices. It reads ⛭ Settings → Membership → Portal settings:

• the switch appears when Yearly is among the prices Portal offers
• offer Monthly as well, so readers have two prices to switch between
• the default plan decides which side the switch starts on

Changing the switch rolls each price over to the other period and points the Subscribe buttons at the matching checkout.

Without Yearly in Portal, there is no switch and each card shows its monthly price.

The Buttons#

Each card ends with a Subscribe button. It opens Ghost Portal at the signup step for that tier and billing period, so Portal handles the checkout.

A paid member sees Subscription management on the paid tiers instead, and a free member sees it on the free tier. That button opens the member's account in Portal.

Adding an FAQ#

Anything written in the page body appears under the tier cards. Ghost's Toggle card works well here:

1. Open the membership page in the editor
2. Insert a Toggle card for each question
3. Put the question in the heading and the answer in the content
4. Click Update

Headings, buttons and every other Ghost card work in the same place.

Post Access Levels#

Pricing is only half of a membership. The other half is deciding who can read what:

1. Open a post
2. Open Post settings → Access
3. Choose one of the levels below
4. Click Publish or Update

What restricted posts look like#

When the reader cannot open a post, its card picture carries a badge. It reads Members for a members-only post and Paid for a paid or tier-only post.

Opening the post shows the public preview Ghost allows, then a call to action worded for the access level: This post is for subscribers only, This post is for paying subscribers only, or the names of the tiers. A visitor gets Become a member with a Sign in link under it. A signed-in member on the wrong tier gets Upgrade your account.

The Subscribe Block in the Menu#

A row in the navigation whose label starts with @ and whose URL is /membership/ opens a subscribe block in the dropdown. Next to the signup form it lists your public tiers with their monthly price, up to three, and the free tier as Free. Readers who are already members see a plain link to the page instead. See Navigation.

Notes#

• Prices, currency, trials and benefits are never edited in the theme. Change a tier in Ghost and the page follows.
• Until Stripe is connected the only public tier is the free one, so the page shows a single card. Add your paid tiers before sharing the link.
• For the account, sign-in and subscribe pages, see Account and Sign-in.