PayGlue Blog
Payments for Ghost, without the Stripe requirement
Setup guides, provider comparisons and the workarounds that do not hold up. Written for publishers who hit the wall Ghost's billing puts in front of them.
Try "stripe", "polar" or "webhook"
Showing all 39 posts
I Built a Safety Net for Your Site, Then Did Not Use It for Two MonthsPayGlue sits between your payment provider and your members, so every change I make lands on your site. In July I built a practice copy to try changes on first. In August I found out I had stopped using it eight weeks earlier.6 min read →I Built a Safety Net for Your Site, Then Did Not Use It for Two MonthsPayGlue sits between your payment provider and your members, so every change I make lands on your site. In July I built a practice copy to try changes on first. In August I found out I had stopped using it eight weeks earlier.6 min read →
Photo: حامد طهI Followed My Own Setup Guide, and It Broke the InstallMy open-source build passed every test, built cleanly in CI, and could not be installed by following the instructions I wrote. Here is what a laptop, Docker Desktop and one clean clone found that 579 tests never could.11 min read →
Photo: the blowupOpen-Sourcing Your SaaS: The Failures Nobody Warns You AboutI published the source of a tool that connects payment providers to other people's websites, then found the mistakes that had been sitting there for weeks. Hardcoded addresses, defaults that mailed strangers my customers' data, a public build nobody had ever run, and one commit I could not take back.24 min read →The Foreign Stripe Account: Why the Forum Advice Is BadOpen a company in a country Stripe supports, connect it to Ghost, done. It works for a while, which is exactly the problem. Here is the failure mode and what to do instead.5 min read →Ghost Member Not Found After PaymentThe payment went through, the webhook was processed, and there is no member. Four causes, in the order they are worth checking, and the one that accounts for most of them.5 min read →Moving Ghost From Stripe to Another Payment ProviderGhost's native billing and an outside provider can run side by side, which is what makes this safe. The order of operations is what makes it uneventful.5 min read →Ghost vs Substack vs Beehiiv: The Structural DifferencesFees and features change every quarter. Who owns the reader relationship, and what leaves with you when you go, does not. This compares the parts that stay true.5 min read →Importing Members Into Ghost Without Losing the Paid OnesGhost's CSV import takes eight columns, and the one it does not take is the reason people redo the whole thing a week later. Here is the file to build and the order to build it in.5 min read →Polar vs Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle for GhostThree merchants of record, all of which will take money and handle your VAT. The differences that matter for a Ghost membership are not the ones on the pricing pages.5 min read →Running Two Payment Providers on One Ghost SiteIt is a normal configuration rather than a hack or a temporary migration state. Ghost memberships are provider-agnostic by design, which leaves four things to watch.5 min read →Selling to the EU From Outside ItThere is no minimum you have to cross before EU VAT applies to a digital subscription. That single fact catches more publishers than any technical problem in this blog.5 min read →Moving From Substack to Ghost, Including the Paying PartThe posts and the email list come across in an afternoon. The paying subscribers do not come across at all, and every guide that skips this leaves you to discover it on the day.5 min read →What Happens to Active Subscriptions When You Switch ProvidersThe question that stops most provider changes before they start. The answer is uncomfortable and manageable, and knowing it up front changes how you plan the whole thing.5 min read →Testing Ghost Payments Before You LaunchMost people test the purchase and stop. The purchase is the part that fails loudly. Here is the checklist that covers the parts that fail quietly, months later, without telling you.5 min read →Ghost + Patreon: Sync Your Patrons Into Ghost TiersPatreon keeps the audience and the billing. Ghost gets the content and the gate. The catch is what happens on cancellation, and it is worth knowing before you map a second tier.4 min read →Ghost + Creem: Merchant-of-Record Billing SetupCreem is the strictest provider here about webhook signatures, which is a good thing wearing an inconvenient hat. It also has a sandbox switch you can get wrong in a way that fails confusingly.5 min read →Ghost + Gumroad: Selling Access to Your Ghost SiteGumroad is the shortest setup of any provider that handles subscriptions properly, because it is the only one where you never touch a webhook screen. Here is the whole thing.5 min read →Ghost Memberships in India: Payment Options That Actually WorkTwo separate problems stack up for Indian publishers on Ghost, and most advice only addresses one. Here is how to work out what will actually pay you.6 min read →Merchant of Record Explained: Who Handles Your VATThe difference between a payment processor and a merchant of record decides who files tax in every country your readers live in. The least glamorous decision you will make, and an expensive one to get wrong.5 min read →My Ghost Webhook Isn't Firing: A Diagnosis ChecklistSomebody paid and no Ghost member appeared. Three completely different faults look identical from outside. Here is how to tell them apart in under a minute.6 min read →
Photo: Barbara VergeI Built an Affiliate Program, and here's why 40% felt rightA few beta testers asked me the same question, independently, a few weeks apart: is there a referral program? Not in a 'how do I monetize this' way. More like, 'I've already been telling people about this, it would be nice if that actually counted for something.'2 min read →Ghost + Make.com: Building the Membership Workflow, and Where It StopsMake gives you routers, error handlers and real state, which puts it well ahead of Zapier for this job. Then Ghost's Admin API asks for something no visual builder wants to give it.7 min read →
Photo: Tim MossholderOpen Beta Is Live: Founding Pricing Starts at 9€The waitlist page is gone. As of today, anyone can sign up for PayGlue, connect Ghost, connect a payment provider, and start using it right away. Checkout works. Founding member pricing is live, starting at 9€.3 min read →Ghost + Ko-fi: Turning Supporters Into MembersKo-fi is the fastest setup of any provider here: one token, no webhook registration. It also has a limitation that decides whether it fits you at all.5 min read →Ghost + PayPal: Recurring Memberships Without StripePayPal reaches countries Stripe does not, which is often the whole reason to use it. It also works differently from every other provider here. What that means for a Ghost membership.6 min read →Ghost + Paddle: Memberships With the Tax Handled for YouPaddle is a merchant of record with unusually broad tax coverage. It also has no checkout links, which changes how you put a buy button on a Ghost site. Here is the whole setup.5 min read →Ghost + Lemon Squeezy: The Complete Membership SetupLemon Squeezy handles the checkout and the tax. Ghost handles the content. Here is how to connect them so a purchase grants access on its own, and a cancellation takes it away.6 min read →
Photo: Антон ДмитриевPayGlue Now Has a Public Status PageIf PayGlue is processing webhooks for your Ghost site, you probably want to know when something is wrong before your readers do. Until now, there was no way for you to check. That changes today.2 min read →
Photo: Rahul MishraPayGlue Is Now Open SourceWhen I started building PayGlue, open source was not part of the original plan. It was not off the table either, I had just never committed to it. Today that changed. The full codebase is public.4 min read →
Photo: Nathan DumlaoWhat a Full Pricing Table Looks Like When It Talks to GhostA free tier, a one-time payment and two subscriptions, side by side in one table, all landing as the same thing: a Ghost membership. Here is what happens under each button, and where to see the table itself.1 min read →
Photo: Emmanuel AppiahThree Buttons, One Dashboard: How I Embed Payment Links in This BlogA tip jar, an event ticket, and a button that takes no money at all. All three built in one dashboard, all three deliberately styled differently. Here is why, and where to click them.1 min read →
Photo: Call Me FredHow This Blog Runs with a PayGlue PaywallI could have written another 'why I built this' post. Instead there is a real paywall in front of my own writing, and that is the demo. Here is how it works, and where to walk into it yourself.2 min read →
Photo: Christian VelitchkovPayPal Donation Button + Zapier for Ghost: The Forum Advice That Sounds Simple But Isn'tSearch any Ghost community forum for 'PayPal memberships' and you will find the same suggestion: add a PayPal donation button and connect it to Ghost via Zapier. Here is why that advice is well-intentioned but fundamentally broken for membership sites.3 min read →
Photo: Kai PilgerStripe Isn't Available in Your Country. Your Ghost Memberships Still Can Be.Ghost asks for Stripe and stops there. If Stripe doesn't operate where you live, here are the three routes people take and the one that actually holds up.6 min read →
Photo: Ivan NGhost + Zapier: Manual Workflow for Non-Stripe Payments (and Its Limits)Zapier is often the first suggestion when Ghost publishers ask about non-Stripe payment support. Here is an honest look at how the workflow is set up, where it breaks down, and what it actually costs.3 min read →
Photo: Elmer CañasGhost + n8n: Manual Webhook Workflow Setup (and Why It Gets Complicated)n8n is a powerful open-source automation tool. You can use it to connect payment providers to Ghost, but the setup is more involved than most forum posts suggest. Here is what it actually takes.3 min read →
Photo: Pricilla ParrasGhost Webhooks Explained: How Payment Providers Talk to Your Membership SiteWhat actually happens between the moment a customer clicks 'buy' and the moment Ghost grants them access? A plain-English guide to webhooks, retries, signature verification, and why they sometimes fail.2 min read →
Photo: Dan CounsellGhost + Polar: The Complete Setup Guide for MembershipsPolar handles the checkout and the EU VAT. Ghost handles the content. Here is the whole connection, including the optional step most people skip and then wish they had not.6 min read →
Photo: SumUpHow to Accept Payments on Ghost Without StripeGhost asks for Stripe and offers no second option. Here is every route out of that, what each one costs you, and the honest reason to pick each.10 min read →