Group Subscriptions

Documentation Index

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Group subscriptions let one person (the group owner) pay for multiple seats and distribute them by inviting other members via email. This works for teams, companies, newsrooms, educational institutions, or families. Group subscriptions differ from institutional subscriptions: group subscriptions require inviting members by email; institutional subscriptions apply automatically to anyone with a matching email pattern. Group subscriptions come in three configurations:

• Tier-based — a self-serve, banded pricing model where the buyer chooses how many seats to purchase (e.g., 2-5 seats at $100 each, 6-10 seats at$90 each). Public by default.
• Offer-based — a fixed, defined offer where you set the number of seats and the price. Private by default; useful when a group writes in to request a custom deal.
• Tiered offer — multiple tier options at different seat counts, available to seat holders.

Public group subscriptions are listed on your group subscription page; private ones still have working URLs but aren’t listed publicly. You can make either type public or private. Go to Subscriptions → Group Subscriptions to configure and manage groups.

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How it works (Tier-based)

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Group subscription types

Groups can be configured in different ways:

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Setting up group subscriptions

Configure group subscriptions per tier in Subscriptions → Group Subscriptions:

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Seat management

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How seats work

When a group owner purchases a group subscription, they receive a set number of seats based on the plan they chose. The owner occupies one seat, and the remaining seats can be distributed to other people via invitations. For tiered offer groups, the seat count is determined by the specific tier the owner selected at checkout, so different pricing tiers can include different numbers of seats.

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Seat limits and availability

Outpost tracks seat usage by counting active and pending invitations against the total seat count. A seat is considered used when an invitation is in Sent or Accepted status. Expired and deleted invitations free up seats for new invitations. Before allowing a group owner to send a new invite, Outpost checks:

• The total seat count for the group
• How many invitations are currently sent or accepted
• Whether any pending invitations are waiting to be processed

If all seats are filled, the owner needs to remove a member or purchase additional seats before inviting someone new.

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Adding seats mid-cycle

Adding seats mid-cycle isn’t yet self-serve. Contact support@outpost.pub to make this change.

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Removing a seat holder

When a group owner removes a member from the group:

• The seat holder’s access to gated content is revoked (they are downgraded to free membership)
• Group-specific labels are removed from the seat holder
• The seat becomes available for a new invitation

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Invite management

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For group owners

Group owners access a management dashboard in the advanced settings page on your site (usually /advanced-settings) where they can:

• Send invites — Enter email addresses to invite specific people
• Copy invite link — Get a shareable URL (if public sharing is enabled)
• View seats — See which seats are filled and by whom
• Remove members — Revoke a seat and free it for someone else

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The invitation flow

When a group owner sends an invite:

1. Invite created — Outpost records the invitation and queues the invite email
2. Invite email sent — The seat holder receives an email with a personalized accept link, including the group owner’s name and email
3. Waiting for acceptance — The invite remains active until the recipient accepts, it expires, or the owner revokes it
4. Reminder sent for unaccepted invites — If configured in your Autoresponder settings, a reminder email is sent after a configurable delay
5. Accepted — The recipient clicks the link, creates an account (or logs in), and receives complimentary access to the group’s tier. The group owner is notified.
6. Expired — If the invite is not accepted within the configured time window (default 7 days), it expires and the group owner is notified. The seat becomes available.

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Invite statuses

Outpost automatically manages the invite lifecycle — pending invites expire after a configured period, and reminder emails are sent for unaccepted invites.

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Admin management

As a site admin, you can:

• View all group subscriptions and their owners
• See seat counts and member rosters for each group
• Send/revoke invitations on the group owner’s behalf
• Filter the member list to show only group subscribers
• Archive group subscriptions that are no longer active

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Member identification

Each group member is individually tracked in Outpost’s member list and synced to Ghost with the appropriate tier membership, giving them full access to gated content. Members are automatically labeled so you can distinguish them:

• Group owners receive a “group subscription buyer” label plus any custom owner label you configure
• Seat holders receive a “group subscription member” label plus any custom recipient label you configure
• Both receive a label linking them to the specific group subscription, so you can filter members by group

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What happens when a group subscription is set for renewal

When a group subscription is up for renewal and is paid through Stripe, renewal works the same as any other subscription:

• The group buyer is notified of the upcoming charge
• If auto-renewal is not cancelled, the buyer’s payment method is charged on the renewal date
• Seat holders and the group owner keep their subscriptions
• This continuation is silent for group members

If the group subscription is paid by invoice, renewal is handled manually outside of Stripe and the group buyer needs to settle the next invoice before access continues.

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What happens when a group subscription is not renewed

If a group subscription ends either because the group buyer turned off auto-renewal or payment for renewal failed:

• All seat holders lose paid level access when the expiration date passes
• The group owner’s paid level subscription ends
• Seat holders and the group owner are downgraded to a free membership
• This downgrade is silent for group members

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Autoresponder integration

The Autoresponder’s Other tab includes 7 pre-built group subscription email actions: The invite expiration and invite reminder timing are controlled by the delay settings on these Autoresponder actions. For example, setting the expired invite action to 168 hours (7 days) makes invitations expire after a week. The remaining seats reminder is sent to group owners after a configurable delay from their subscription start date, reminding them to fill any unused seats. See Autoresponder → Other tab for details.

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Frequently asked questions

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