Membership & tiers

Dispatch is designed for paid newsletters. This page walks through the complete membership setup from Ghost configuration to the theme’s rendered output.

Enable members

In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Membership and set Subscription access to “Members only” or leave it open — Dispatch works with both. Ensure the Enable members toggle is on.

Create tiers

Go to Settings → Membership → Tiers and create your tiers. A common setup is one free tier and one paid tier, but Ghost supports multiple paid tiers if your publication has distinct offer levels.

For each tier, configure:

• Name — shown in the pricing table and in Portal.
• Description — a short line that appears below the tier name.
• Monthly and yearly price — Stripe amounts in your chosen currency.
• Benefits — a bullet list shown in the pricing card.

Note

Tier prices, names, and benefits come from Ghost, not from the theme. To change what appears in the pricing table, update your tiers in Ghost Admin, not the theme settings.

Connect Stripe

Go to Settings → Membership and follow the Stripe connection flow. Ghost handles all payment processing; Dispatch does not store or touch payment data.

Caution

Test your Stripe integration with a Stripe test-mode key before going live. Use a private browser window to confirm the full sign-up flow as a new visitor.

Pricing table on the homepage

With tiers configured and show_pricing_on_home enabled, Dispatch renders a pricing table on the homepage below the post feed. Each tier appears as a card with its name, price, description, and benefit list. The table is sourced live from Ghost — no additional configuration is required in the theme.

To hide the pricing table from the homepage without removing your tiers, set show_pricing_on_home to false in Settings → Design → Customize.

Paywall

Posts set to Members only or a specific paid tier display a paywall block to readers who do not have access. The paywall shows a preview of the post content followed by a subscribe prompt. The prompt text is not separately configurable; it uses your site title and Ghost’s default Portal messaging.

Portal — sign-in and account pages

Ghost Portal provides sign-in, sign-up, and account management. Dispatch styles the Portal trigger button and the account page route (/account/) to match the publication. No additional configuration is required; Portal activates automatically when members are enabled.

Readers can access their account and manage their subscription via the account icon in the site header.