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Connect a Stripe account to Ghost. It does not need to process a single payment; it exists so that Ghost has a paid state. From then on PayGlue marks every buyer as comped, Ghost’s own term for a complimentary paid membership, and Ghost treats them exactly like a paying Stripe subscriber. Set the post to Paid members only, and Ghost holds the gated part back on the server for everyone else: free members, feed readers, the social web, the Content API.
This is the real server-side paywall for readers who paid through Polar, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy or any other provider PayGlue connects. Every purchase through a PayGlue pricing table, buy button or paywall config becomes a comped member and passes the gate. Existing Stripe subscribers keep passing it too, so both paths coexist on the same site and in the same member list.

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How access flows

  1. A reader buys at your provider, through a PayGlue pricing table or button.
  2. The provider sends PayGlue a webhook. PayGlue creates or updates the Ghost member, sets comped and the PayGlue labels, and lets Ghost send the welcome email you chose.
  3. The reader clicks the magic link, is signed in, and Ghost opens every “Paid members only” post for them, because comped counts as paid.
  4. When the subscription ends at the provider, PayGlue removes comped and the label. Ghost closes the posts again.

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What to plan for

Your offers need a home outside Ghost’s upgrade box. At the gate, Ghost shows its own upgrade box, and that box opens the Portal, which only knows Stripe. Readers who paid through your provider never see it, because they are already through. Everyone else does, so give your PayGlue offers a visible place: the pricing table in the public part of the post above the gate, a membership page linked from your navigation, or both. If your theme lets you edit the upgrade text, point it at that page.
The Stripe account can stay idle. Nothing forces you to sell through it. If you do, both paths write to the same member list and never conflict over the same person; see Ghost and Stripe: with it or without it.
One cosmetic side effect. Comped members show up in your Stripe dashboard as subscriptions for zero, and Ghost shows a Stripe-flavoured cancellation notice on them. Access is unaffected; Zero-amount Stripe subscriptions explains it.
Ghost’s revenue numbers stay at zero. No money went through Stripe, so Ghost’s dashboard does not count it. The real figures sit at your provider, and the PayGlue dashboard shows the grants per provider.

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When to pick it

Whenever Stripe is available to you and the content should be readable by paying readers only: paid deep dives, premium archives, anything a technical audience would otherwise read in the feed. It gives you Ghost’s own gate with your own providers behind it. If Stripe is not available where you are, the choice is between option 1, a soft gate with your offers right at the wall, and option 2, a hard gate that every free member passes.