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The Members page is where you view and manage everyone subscribed to your publication. Every subscriber (free, paid, complimentary, gifted, or part of a group) appears here with their subscription status, tier, and some engagement history.
Members Menu
The Members page surfaces information Ghost doesn’t, including group subscription details and Outpost-specific member fields.

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Member types

Outpost tracks several types of members, each with a different relationship to your publication:
Member Types Example
Members who received a gift subscription or belong to a group subscription or institutional subscription also appear here. Their underlying type is still one of the three above: the relationship is tracked separately as labels and detail-panel cards.

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Member lifecycle

Gift, group, and institutional subscriptions don’t introduce new states: they overlay the same Member / Paid / Complimentary types with extra metadata about how the member got there.

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The members list

The members table displays the following columns: Click the expand arrow on any row to open the full member detail view inline.

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Searching members

Type in the Keyword Search box to find members. The search runs a contains match, so typing “gmail” will find all Gmail addresses. Press Enter or click away to apply the search.
Member Keyword Search

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Advanced filtering

Members Advanced Filter
Click the Advanced Filter button to open the filter panel with these options: Click Apply Filter to filter the list, or Clear to remove the filter. When a filter is active, the button label changes to + Advanced Filter so you can see at a glance that filtering is applied.
You can combine keyword search with an advanced filter. For example, filter by a specific tier and then search within those results by keyword.

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Pagination

The members list loads 15 members per page. Use the pagination controls at the bottom of the table to navigate between pages. The total member count is displayed below the table.
Pagination

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Adding a new member

Adding a member normally fires your welcome flow. If you’re bringing someone over from another tool, or importing a list, and don’t want that, see Skipping Welcome Emails.
Add Member And Advanced Filter
Click the Add Member button above the members list to open the Create Member page. Fill in all the information you have, or at least an email address, then click Submit to create the member. You should see the green Success notification pictured here:
Member Creation Success
New members are created with the free newsletter subscription enabled by default, so you will need to hit “Submit” before adding a complimentary subscription. The new member will be synced to Ghost automatically, and you can add a complimentary subscription to your paid content after creating the new member.
If you do not submit the new member before trying to create a complimentary subscription, the following error message will appear:
Member Error Message When Creating Subscription Without Saving New Member First

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Member detail

Click the expand arrow on any member row to view and edit their full profile. The detail view has two cards side by side: Member Details on the left and Subscriptions on the right.
Member Details Expanded

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Member Details card

Read-only fields only appear when they have a value. Custom API ID stays hidden unless your site uses the Outpost API. Meta is different: Outpost stores Ghost’s own record of each member there, so it appears on nearly every member synced from Ghost.
The Subscribed toggle controls newsletter delivery. A separate preference controls whether your promotional, automated, and event-notification emails reach a member: readers manage it on the unsubscribe page, and when a member has opted out it shows on their record as the Marketing_OptOut label. Campaigns and automated emails only reach members who have both switched on, and turning Subscribed off also opts the member out of marketing emails a few minutes later.

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Member notes

Member Note
Member Notes are a free-text field visible only to your staff. Common uses include:
  • Recording the reason a complimentary subscription was granted
  • Noting VIP or high-value subscribers
  • Tracking support interactions or special requests
  • Adding context about the member for other team members
Notes are saved when you click Submit along with any other changes to the member’s profile.

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Custom API ID

If you manage members through the Outpost API or an external system, you can assign each member a Custom API ID. This ID appears in the member detail view and lets you cross-reference members between Outpost and your own database, CRM, or membership platform. Custom API IDs are set when creating or updating members through the API. They are not editable from the Outpost dashboard.

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Subscriptions card

For paid or complimentary members, this card shows:
  • The tier name
  • Membership type (Paid or Complimentary)
  • A Renews or Expires date, or “Forever” when there is no end date set (lifetime complimentary access)
For complimentary members, a menu button (three dots) provides the option to Remove Complimentary Subscription. For free members with no subscription, this card shows a + Add Complimentary Subscription button that opens a dialog with: Click Add Subscription to grant the complimentary access, or Cancel to close the dialog.

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Member addons

Depending on the member’s account, additional cards may appear below the main panels:
  • Group Subscriptions: If the member belongs to a group subscription, you can view and manage their group membership here.
  • Group Subscription Invites: If the member has been invited to a group subscription, those invites are listed here with management options. The Details column shows who sent each invite and the date it was sent, plus an Expires date once the invite has been accepted. Invites that have been sent, accepted, or expired all appear.
  • Private Feed: If the member has FeedPress private feed access.
  • Institutional Subscription: If the member belongs to an institutional subscription.

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Saving and removing members

  • Click Submit to save changes to the member’s email, name, notes, or subscription status.
  • Click Remove to delete the member entirely. A confirmation dialog will appear before deletion.
Removing a member deletes them from both Outpost and Ghost. This action cannot be undone. If the member has an active paid subscription, cancel their subscription in Stripe first.

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Syncing with Ghost

Outpost keeps members synchronized with Ghost bidirectionally:
  • Outpost to Ghost: When a member’s subscription status changes in Outpost (upgrade, cancel, comp added or removed), their Ghost membership is updated automatically. Changes to email, name, or subscription toggles also sync when you save.
  • Ghost to Outpost: Members who sign up through your Ghost site are synced into Outpost automatically.

Labels

Organize members with custom labels for segmentation and automation.

Spam Filtering

Automatically block spam signups using email, domain, or keyword rules.

Member Cleanup

Remove free members who have unsubscribed from your newsletters.

Data Export

Export your member list or filtered segments to CSV.

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FAQ

A free member signed up without a paid subscription and only has access to free content. A complimentary member has been manually granted access to a paid tier without any billing: they get the same content access as a paying subscriber, but for free.
Yes. Expand the member’s row, edit the email field, and click Submit. The change will sync to Ghost automatically.
It controls newsletter delivery for that member. Turning it off stops your newsletters reaching them, and a few minutes later Outpost also opts them out of your promotional, automated, and event-notification emails. It does not cancel a paid subscription or remove their access to content. Members can opt back in themselves from the unsubscribe page. When a member has opted out, the preference shows on their record as the Marketing_OptOut label; see labels.
Removing a member deletes them from Outpost and Ghost. This action cannot be undone. If the member has an active paid subscription, you should cancel their subscription in Stripe first.
Expand the member’s row, then click + Add Complimentary Subscription in the Subscriptions card. Choose the tier and duration (1 month to lifetime), then click Add Subscription.
The Custom API ID is an identifier you assign to a member through the Outpost API. It lets you link Outpost members to records in your own systems (CRM, database, etc.). If you don’t use the API to manage members, this field will not appear.
Member Notes are an internal free-text field visible only to your team. Use them to record context about a member: why they were comped, support history, VIP status, or anything else your team needs to know. Notes are not visible to the member.
Meta is a raw view of the background data Outpost keeps against a member. Most of it is copied from your Ghost site. Each entry updates only when Ghost sends that piece of information, so some entries can be older than the rest of the record. The entries you’ll see include:
  • ghost_newsletters: the newsletters this member is subscribed to in Ghost. An empty list means they are subscribed to none.
  • ghost_subscriptions: Ghost’s record of their subscription, including tier name, status, whether auto-renewal has been turned off, the price, the end of the current billing period, and the expiry date on a complimentary tier. The price is stored the way Ghost sends it, in the smallest unit of the currency, so $7.00 appears as 700. Each subscription can also have its own attribution fields, Ghost’s record of what led this member to a paid subscription, which is separate from the ghost_attribution entry below.
  • ghost_engagement: how many emails Ghost has sent this member, how many they opened, the open rate Ghost calculates from those two, and when they were last seen on your site. Ghost leaves the open rate empty until a member has received enough tracked sends.
  • ghost_geolocation: the approximate location Ghost recorded for this member from their IP address, such as country and region. If Ghost never recorded one, you will not see this entry.
  • ghost_attribution: where Ghost recorded that this member signed up, such as the post or page and the referring site. Ghost sends it only when Outpost reads that member’s record individually, so many member records will not have this entry. On a member Outpost created in Ghost for you, such as a complimentary subscription you added from the member screen or a member added through the Outpost API, this entry can describe that creation rather than a reader signup. For the attribution Outpost captures itself, see Traffic Source Tracking.
Anything you or an integration set through the Outpost API appears alongside these, as do values Outpost records itself, such as the last CTA a member interacted with. Everything in Meta is read-only in the dashboard.