Tiers & Pricing

Tiers are your subscription products — the things members pay for. They’re created and managed in Ghost, which keeps Stripe in sync automatically. Outpost reads your Ghost tiers and references them for segmentation, offers, access rules, and email flows. There is no dedicated “Tiers” page inside Outpost. Tiers are managed in Ghost and surface inside Outpost wherever they’re useful — in member filters, offer creation, autoresponder rules, paywalls, and reports. Pricing is editable in Subscriptions → Stripe Plans for offer/promotion configuration, but the canonical source for tier names and prices is Ghost.

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How tiers work

Tiers follow a three-system architecture:

1. Ghost — Where you create and name tiers, set pricing, and manage access rules
2. Stripe — Where the corresponding products and prices are created automatically by Ghost
3. Outpost — Where tiers are used for segmentation, offers, automation, paywalls, and reporting

When you create a tier in Ghost, it automatically creates a Stripe product with monthly and annual prices. Outpost syncs these tiers from Ghost and makes them available throughout the platform.

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Creating tiers

Tiers are created in Ghost Admin → Settings → Tiers. When you add a tier in Ghost:

• Ghost creates the corresponding Stripe product and prices
• The tier becomes available in Outpost for segmentation, offers, and automation rules
• Members can subscribe to the tier through your site’s subscription page or via Outpost-generated links

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After adding a new tier

• Ghost does not notify Outpost in real time when a new tier is added. Outpost checks regularly, but you can force a refresh under Publication Details → Refresh.
• If you have Autoresponder actions configured for specific tiers, update the relevant actions to include the new tier.

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Tier pricing

Monthly and annual pricing are set per tier in Ghost. Outpost displays these prices in its offers and conversion tools but doesn’t manage the prices directly. You can set:

• Monthly price — Billed every month
• Annual price — Billed once per year (typically at a discount compared to 12× the monthly price)

Prices are set in your publication’s default currency, configured in Stripe.

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Free tier

The free tier is Ghost’s built-in member level for subscribers who haven’t paid. Free members can:

• Access any content you’ve marked as “public” or “members-only” in Ghost
• Receive your newsletter (if enabled)
• Be targeted by Outpost’s free-to-paid conversion tools (welcome drip emails, CTAs, offers)

Configure what content free members can access in Ghost Admin → Settings → Access.

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Archiving tiers

Archived tiers (set in Ghost) are hidden from the subscription page but remain valid for existing subscribers. Outpost continues to reference archived tiers in segmentation so you can still:

• Send targeted emails to subscribers on old tiers
• Track revenue and metrics for archived tiers

When you archive a tier, you can decide whether to keep Autoresponder actions for that tier OR you can choose to treat the archived tier members as if they were members of other tiers — including which retention and cancellation flows they go through.

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Raising prices by archiving and replacing a tier

Ghost doesn’t let you change the price on a tier once anyone has subscribed to it. The supported pattern is to create a new tier at the new price and archive the old one. Existing subscribers stay on the archived tier (and at the old price) as long as they keep renewing; no one can sign up new on the archived tier. After the swap, plan time in Outpost for the cleanup:

1. Rebuild your Offers and Promotions on the new tier. Anything pointing at the archived tier still works for existing members but can’t be used to sign anyone new up — so any active discount link, autoresponder upsell, or CTA needs to be re-pointed.
2. Decide what happens to the archived-tier subscribers. Once Outpost picks up the archived tier, it appears on the Publication Details page — switch the tier list to the Archived view and you’ll find it highlighted orange until you handle it. Pick one of two options: keep it as its own option in the autoresponder (subscribers stay segmented under the old tier name with their own cancellation and upsell flows — useful if you want to grandfather their pricing in the messaging), or treat them as a tier and map them onto one of your active tiers so they share that tier’s flows.
3. Re-test your conversion paths. The Theme Connect Wizard, paywalls, and CTAs all reference tier IDs — confirm they’re pointing at the new tier where appropriate.

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Tier data in Outpost

For each Ghost tier, Outpost stores and uses:

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How Outpost uses tiers

Tiers are referenced throughout Outpost:

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Subscription schedules

For two-phase pricing (e.g., an intro rate that changes to a standard rate after the first period), see Subscription Schedules.

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Frequently asked questions

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