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Complimentary (comped) subscriptions give a member paid-tier access without requiring a Stripe subscription. Use comps for your team, advisors, beta testers, press contacts, or anyone you want to give free access to premium content. In Ghost, comped members are treated as paid members and can access all paywalled content for the tier they are set to. In Outpost, comped members are tracked separately from paying subscribers: they appear under the Complimentary filter rather than the Paid filter, and they do not count toward revenue metrics.
Outpost uses complimentary subscriptions to power gift, group, and institutional subscriptions. These all appear as complimentary subscriptions in Ghost. Don’t delete complimentary subscriptions without checking why they exist: they may be powering gift, group, or institutional access.
Comps are added and managed from the Members page rather than a dedicated Comps page.

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Adding a comp

From the member detail page:
1

Open the member's profile

Go to Members and click on the member you want to comp.
2

Add complimentary subscription

Click + Add Complimentary Subscription in the Subscriptions card.
3

Configure the comp

Select the tier to grant access to and a duration (1-11 months, 1 year, or Lifetime).
4

Member gets access

The member immediately gains access to the selected tier’s content in Ghost. They’re synced as a paid-tier member without any Stripe billing.
A complimentary subscription does not replace or pause an existing paid subscription. If the member already has a Stripe subscription, comping them on top of it stacks the two: they keep being charged, and the comp simply runs alongside. Cancel the paid subscription first if your intent is to switch them to free access.

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Adding a comp to someone who isn’t a member yet

You can do this entirely in Outpost. Create the member first, then comp them:
1

Create the member

On the Members page, click Add Member, enter at least an email address on the Create Member page, and click Submit. New members are created with the free newsletter subscription enabled, and they sync to Ghost automatically.
2

Add the complimentary subscription

On the saved member’s page, click + Add Complimentary Subscription, pick the tier and duration, then click Add Subscription.
Submit the new member before you try to comp them. A subscription cannot be attached to a member who does not exist yet, and you will see an error if you try. Members walks through the whole flow with screenshots.
If you are already working in Ghost, the same thing works there: create the member under Members → New Member, then use + Add Complimentary Subscription on their record.

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Expiry options

Comped subscriptions can be: When a time-limited comp is about to expire, the Autoresponder can automatically:
  • Notify your staff that a comp is ending soon (so you can decide whether to extend it)
  • Send the comped member emails encouraging them to become a paying subscriber
These emails are configured in the Complimentary tab of the Basic Autoresponder.

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Managing comps

Go to Members and filter by Type: Comped to see all comped members. Open a comped member’s profile to view the comp’s tier and expiry date, or to Remove comp access (the member reverts to free).

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Extending a comp

There is currently no control to edit an active comp’s expiry date in place. To extend a member’s comp, use one of these:
  • Renew from the expiry reminder. As a time-limited comp nears its end date, the Autoresponder’s staff notification email includes a renewal link. The link works for 24 hours from the time that reminder is sent, so renew from a reminder that has just arrived rather than an older one. If the link has expired, wait for the second staff reminder or remove and re-add the comp instead. Renewing sets the comp to end one year from the day you renew rather than adding a year to the current end date, and it keeps the member on the tier they are already comped on.
  • Remove and re-add. On the member’s profile, Remove the complimentary subscription, then click + Add Complimentary Subscription again with the tier and duration you want. Use this if the comp has already lapsed or you missed the reminder window.
  • Set an exact end date. Need a specific expiry rather than a whole-month duration? Your Outpost contact can set an exact membership_end_date on the member’s subscription through the API.
A direct “extend” control on the member profile (to bump an active comp’s expiry date without removing and re-adding it) is planned but not yet available.

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What the renewal page does

The renewal link opens a page with the renewed-notification email loaded into editable Subject and Body fields, and two buttons:
  • Extend Silently renews the comp without emailing the member.
  • Extend Member Subscription renews the comp and sends the member the message shown on the page.
The page only opens while the comp is still active and while the Autoresponder’s Complimentary tab still has an email template attached to Tell a complimentary subscriber their free subscription was extended for another year. If Outpost cannot work out which tier to renew, it stops and shows “We were unable to extend the subscription: no tier is available for this site.” The comp is left as it was and the member is not emailed. This happens when the member has no tier recorded and your site has no active paid tier with a yearly price. Add a yearly price to one of your paid tiers in Ghost, or set the comp by hand from the member’s profile in Outpost.
If a comped member looks like they are on the wrong tier, the cause is usually a renewal from an expiry reminder. Renewing used to move the member onto the first active paid tier on your site that has a yearly price, whatever tier their comp was on. It now keeps them on the tier they are already comped on. To put a member back on the right tier, remove the complimentary subscription from their profile and add it again on the tier you want.

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Autoresponder integration

The Autoresponder’s Complimentary tab includes 7 pre-built email actions for comps. Note that these do not apply to gift/group/institutional subscribers even though they are technically also complimentary. See Autoresponder → Complimentary tab for details.

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Comp vs. gift comparison

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Frequently asked questions

Yes. If a comped member subscribes through an Outpost promotion link, they become a standard paid subscriber. Their complimentary access is replaced by the paid subscription.
No. Complimentary subscriptions don’t generate Stripe charges, so they don’t appear in revenue metrics. They do appear in member counts and tier segmentation.
A member can only have one active complimentary subscription at a time. There is no control to change the tier on an active comp. To move a comped member to a different tier, remove the complimentary subscription from their profile and add a new one on the tier you want.
The member loses access to paid content and reverts to free status. If you’ve enabled the expiring subscription upsell emails in the Autoresponder, they’ll receive reminders encouraging them to subscribe before losing access.
There’s no hard limit in Ghost or Outpost. However, since comped members count toward your member total and receive the same content access as paying members, consider the impact on your publication’s economics.

Gift Subscriptions

Paid gifts from one member to another (different from comps)

Autoresponder

Automated emails for comp welcome, expiry warnings, and staff notifications

Members

View and manage all members including comped subscribers

Labels

Tag comped members for segmentation and targeting