I could have written another “why I built this” post. The more honest demo was to put a real paywall in front of my own writing and let readers walk into it.
So that is what the demo blog does. There is an article on it that stops mid-sentence behind a paywall, and that paywall is not a Ghost native tier. It is PayGlue, running on my own infrastructure, gating my own writing, with a sandbox checkout that costs nothing.
This post explains what happens when you hit it. The wall itself is one link away.
Why the demo is the product itself
Most SaaS landing pages ask you to trust a list of features. I would rather show you the thing running. PayGlue connects Ghost CMS to payment providers beyond Stripe and manages member access when someone pays. The most convincing way to demonstrate that is to put it directly in the path of my own readers.
Mechanically, here is the loop:
- You read the post as a public visitor, or as a free member if you signed up.
- Partway down, the content stops and a paywall block appears.
- You complete checkout with a connected provider. Polar, in this demo.
- Polar sends a webhook to PayGlue.
- PayGlue verifies the signature and confirms the payment is genuine.
- PayGlue calls the Ghost Admin API and adds a
payglue-activelabel to your account. - The snippet on the page reads that label from Ghost’s member API and drops the overlay.
No manual approval, no spreadsheet, no “let me check whether your payment came through.” The loop closes by itself.
This is where the wall drops
Except it does not, because you are on the marketing site, and putting a paywall in front of that would be a bold move. The real one lives on the demo blog, and it will not let you past on charm alone. Sandbox checkout, so it costs nothing: enter 0 at checkout for free access, or use the test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, expiry 01/30, CVC 123. Nothing is charged.