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Gift subscriptions allow one member (the giver) to purchase a paid subscription on behalf of another person (the recipient). Outpost handles the purchase, delivery, and activation end-to-end.
An earlier view of the Gift Subscriptions settings page, showing the gift page URL, one gift plan field, and the gift product description fieldsAn earlier view of the Gift Subscriptions settings page, showing the gift page URL, one gift plan field, and the gift product description fields

The Gift Subscriptions settings page, showing the gift page URL, one gift plan field, and the gift product description fields

Go to Subscriptions → Gift Subscriptions to configure the feature.

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Gift pricing

The Subscriptions → Gift Subscriptions page has three prices, and each one covers a different moment in a gift’s life. Changing a price never changes what anyone has already been charged. Enter the Gift renewal price and the Recipient conversion price as plain amounts, for example 25.00. There is no plan to pick: Outpost creates the matching price in Stripe for you, on the same tier, billing period, and currency as your current Gift offer price. A renewal at your Gift renewal price therefore runs for as long as a gift bought today. Choose a Gift offer price first: both amount fields stay unavailable until you have chosen one. You can set prices with up to two decimal places, for example 99.99. Saving the same amount again reuses the price Outpost already created rather than adding another one in Stripe. When a saved price sits on a different tier from your current Gift offer price, for example after you move your Gift offer price to a different tier, the next save of this page moves that price onto the new tier and billing period, keeping the same amount.
The price in the recipient’s “subscription ending soon” emails is set on this page, not on the email template. Outpost uses your Recipient conversion price, or your Gift offer price if you’ve left it empty.

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How it works

1

Giver purchases a gift

The giver visits your gift subscription page, enters the recipient’s email and an optional personal message, and pays via Stripe. Gift subscriptions are one-time purchases: they do not auto-renew. The purchaser can also choose to have this start in the future - e.g. for a birthday present.
2

Recipient is notified by email

Outpost emails the recipient to let them know about the gift, including the giver’s name and personal message (if provided), with a link to sign in and start reading. If the gift was scheduled for a future date, this email goes out on that date.
3

Access is set up automatically

The recipient’s membership is activated automatically when the gift is delivered. There’s nothing for them to redeem and no payment information required. They simply sign in (or create their account) to start reading. For scheduled gifts, this happens on the chosen start date.
4

Subscription lifecycle

After the gift period ends, the recipient’s subscription expires. They can choose to continue by adding their own payment method and subscribing. A recipient can also subscribe at any time before then, for example from the Subscription ending soon email. Their own paid subscription starts straight away and replaces the rest of the gift. The Autoresponder can send reminders to the giver before the gift sub expires to see if they want to re-give, and then up to three reminders to the recipient shortly before expiry encouraging them to subscribe for themselves.
Gift subscriptions are one-time purchases and do not auto-renew. When a gift is about to expire, both the giver and recipient can receive reminder emails encouraging renewal or conversion to a self-paid subscription.

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Scheduled gifts

Givers can schedule a gift to be delivered on a specific date (useful for birthdays, holidays, or other occasions). The giver pays immediately, but the recipient isn’t notified and their access doesn’t begin until the scheduled date. Outpost uses your site’s timezone to decide when the scheduled day has arrived. On that day, the recipient’s membership is activated and their gift email is sent between 10am and 8pm in your site’s timezone; givers choose a date, not a specific time of day. Set your timezone under Settings → Publication Details.

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Gift subscription management

In Members, gift givers and gift recipients are labeled:

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Gift lifecycle statuses

Each gift subscription moves through these statuses:

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Autoresponder integration

The Autoresponder’s Gift Subscriptions tab includes 11 pre-built email actions: The first five emails are receipts and gift notices, so they are Account emails. They go to readers who turned off promotional emails too. The recipient’s first reminder, 8 days before the gift ends, is an Account email too. The giver’s three reminders and the recipient’s 3-day and 1-day reminders are promotional. Each reminder’s footer has a link that stops that series for that one gift. See Email preferences for what a reader can stop. Renewal and conversion prices are not set on these emails. The three Gift ending soon reminders and the three Subscription ending soon reminders never show an Offer field: what a giver pays to give again, and what a recipient is offered when they subscribe on their own, are both set on the Gift Subscriptions settings page. See Gift pricing. The other five gift emails have no price of their own, so they show no Offer field either. If you add the %OFFER_URL% link to one of them in the Autoresponder, an Offer field appears there so you can choose the offer that link points to. In a step of the Advanced Autoresponder, gift emails never show an Offer field. In an email campaign, choose an offer for a gift email in the Offer column. That offer applies only to the campaign. The gift emails your autoresponder sends keep the prices on this page. See Autoresponder → Gift Subscriptions tab for details.

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Frequently asked questions

No. If the recipient already has an active paid subscription, Outpost blocks the purchase and points the buyer to the member portal instead, since there’s no point paying for access they already have. To give an existing paid member extra time or free access, use a Complimentary Subscription instead.
Refund handling depends on your Stripe settings and policies. Refunds need to be processed through your Stripe dashboard. Refunding the payment does not remove the recipient’s access on its own: if you refund a gift, also remove the recipient’s complimentary access from their member profile (see Complimentary Subscriptions).
There’s no redemption step, so the recipient’s membership is set up automatically when the gift is delivered: the access is waiting for them whether or not they open the email. They can sign in any time before the gift period ends. (Until a scheduled gift’s start date arrives, it simply stays pending and the recipient isn’t notified.)
For free access grants, use Complimentary Subscriptions instead. Gift subscriptions always involve a payment from the giver.
No. Gift subscriptions are one-time purchases. The recipient can choose to subscribe on their own, even before the gift ends. Their own paid subscription starts straight away and replaces the rest of the gift. The Autoresponder sends reminders to both the giver and recipient before expiry.
A scheduled gift starts on the date the giver chooses, measured in your site’s timezone. On that day, the recipient’s membership is activated and their gift email is sent sometime between 10am and 8pm (site time); givers pick a date, not a specific time. Until then, the gift stays pending and the recipient isn’t notified. Set your timezone under Settings → Publication Details.
It depends on where their free access came from. If the complimentary access is itself a gift, the purchase goes through as long as that gift is still active or ended within about the last two months. Outpost never shortens access that has an end date. If the gift is still active, the new gift’s term is added on top of the time the recipient has left, so the two stack.If the complimentary access came from anywhere else, such as a complimentary subscription you granted, or a group or institutional subscription, Outpost blocks the purchase and tells the buyer the recipient already has a complimentary subscription. To grant or extend free access for those members, use Complimentary Subscriptions instead.
All four give a member access without that member paying, but they’re set up differently:
  • Gift: one member buys a paid subscription for another person, purchased through Stripe.
  • Complimentary: you grant free access to an individual, with or without an end date.
  • Group and Institutional: an organization sponsors access for many members at once.
Gifts and individual complimentary subscriptions are usually time-limited: they have an end date and trigger reminder emails before they expire. Group and institutional subscriptions are typically open-ended and don’t send expiry reminders.
You can gift someone again at any time, even while their current gift still has time left.When a repeat gift is delivered, Outpost adds the new gift’s term on top of the time the recipient already has, so the two stack. Someone with six months left who receives another year keeps access for eighteen months, not twelve. Time already on the account counts whatever its source: an earlier gift from you, a gift from anyone else, or complimentary access with an end date. The time remaining is counted in whole months and rounded up, so a recipient with eleven months and a few days left is credited with twelve.If the new gift pushes the expiry date out, the recipient gets a “membership extended” email rather than the full first-gift welcome, and the giver is thanked for extending rather than for starting something new. Both are separate actions on the Autoresponder’s Gift Subscriptions tab, so you can word them yourself. If either one is turned off, the matching first-gift email is sent in its place.Every gift, first or repeat, places the recipient on the tier behind your current Gift offer price. If that tier is archived, see Archived tiers with active subscribers. What the giver pays on a renewal depends on your settings. If you have set a Gift renewal price, that is what they pay. If you have left it empty, they pay the same price as the gift they are renewing, even if you have since raised your Gift offer price, unless that original price is no longer available in Stripe, in which case they pay your Gift offer price. Set a Gift renewal price if you want renewals to follow your current pricing. Renewal links already sent keep working after a price change. See Gift pricing.A gift that has just ended doesn’t block its own renewal. For about two months after a gift’s end date, the recipient can be gifted again, even while their account still shows as complimentary. A renewal bought after the old gift ended counts as a fresh gift, not an extension: the recipient gets the full welcome email rather than the “membership extended” one, and the giver gets the purchase thank-you rather than the extension thank-you.
That message means something failed on the technical side, not that a rule blocked the purchase. When a rule blocks the purchase, the buyer is told the actual reason instead: that the recipient already has a paid subscription, that the recipient has a complimentary subscription that didn’t come from a gift, or that the buyer entered their own email as the recipient. The message about a complimentary subscription includes a link so the buyer can email you if they think the block is a mistake. It opens an email to your sender address in Email Design Settings, so these land in your inbox.If buyers report seeing “Unable to create gift checkout. Please try again later.”, something in your setup is failing: confirm gift subscriptions are enabled and priced under Subscriptions → Gift Subscriptions and that your Stripe connection is working.
When someone buys a gift, Outpost creates a member record for the buyer so it can send them the purchase thank-you, the “gift delivered” notice, and renewal reminders before the gift expires. A buyer who isn’t a paying subscriber appears in the Members list with a Type of Member, which is what Outpost calls a free reader, and the Current Subscription Length column shows a dash, because there is no subscription of their own running. The record stays after the gift ends; Outpost doesn’t delete members automatically.If the buyer is already a member (free or paid), their existing record is reused and their own membership is left unchanged. Buying a gift never alters the buyer’s own subscription.

Complimentary Subscriptions

Free access grants (different from paid gifts)

Autoresponder

Automated gift-related emails for givers and recipients

Tiers & Pricing

The subscription products available as gifts

Offers & Discounts

Promotional pricing and coupon codes for your subscription plans