Subscribe

Subscribe behaves the same way as Sign Up

The Subscribe page is the dedicated place where visitors can create a Ghost member account on your site — either via Ghost Portal (overlay) or via a custom inline Subscribe form, depending on your theme setting.

Subscribe page in Crimson

How to create the Subscribe page in Crimson?

To create Subscribe page, you do not need to create anything inside Ghost. Just upload the routes.yaml file and Crimson will create the custom Subscribe page.

Read more about routes.yaml file at Upload routes.yaml file

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URL and route setup

For Subscribe page, we have following routes.yaml configuration.

routes:
  /subscribe/:
    template: subscribe

This tells Ghost: when someone opens /subscribe/, render subscribe.hbs.

If you see a 404 on /subscribe/, the route is either missing, your routes.yaml hasn’t been uploaded, or Ghost hasn’t reloaded routes yet.

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Settings that control the page behavior

A) Crimson setting: use_portal_links

This is your theme toggle that decides how people sign up:

• ON → open Ghost Portal subscribe (overlay) using Portal links (#/portal/subscribe/ or data-portal="subscribe"). Portal link behavior is supported directly by Ghost.

• OFF → show a custom inline subscribe form that Ghost handles via data-members-form="subscribe".

Read more about use_portal_links site wide setting in Site-wide Settings

B) Ghost Admin setting: “Who should be able to subscribe to your site?”

In Ghost Admin → Settings → Membership → Access, Ghost lets you choose:

1. Anyone can sign up

2. Paid-members only

3. Invite-only

4. Nobody

Ghost Admin settings to control Membership Access

Ghost exposes this to themes via:

• @site.members_enabled → true if access is not set to “Nobody”

• @site.members_invite_only → true if access is set to “Only people I invite”

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Behavior summary

The Subscribe template has 4 main branches:

1) If visitor is already logged in (@member)

✅ Redirect to Account page

• Portal account if use_portal_links is ON → /account/#/portal/account/

• Normal account if OFF → /account/

This ensures members never see a subscribe page again.

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2) If site is invite-only (@site.members_invite_only)

Membership access is set to Invite-only

✅ Show an invite-only message:

Subscribe page when membership access is set to Invite-only

…and provide a Sign in link (which opens Portal Sign in if use_portal_links is ON, via data-portal="signin"). Portal links + data-portal are a standard Ghost feature.

Invite-only prevents public sign-ups, but imported/invited members can still log in.

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3) If memberships are enabled (@site.members_enabled)

This means access is either:

• Anyone can sign up, or

• Paid-members only

Membership enabled in Ghost settings

Now use_portal_links decides the experience:

If use_portal_links is ON (Portal mode)

• The template sets: window.location.hash = '/portal/subscribe/'

• Then it renders a simple page with a Subscribe button that includes data-portal="subscribe"

Result: the Portal subscribe overlay opens on /subscribe/ using the Portal route pattern.

Subscribe portal popup when use_portal_links is turned on

Portal can be customized from Ghost Admin (plans shown at sign up, terms notice, requiring agreement, etc.)

If use_portal_links is OFF (Custom form mode)

The template shows an inline form:

<form data-members-form="subscribe"> … </form>

Subscribe page when membership access is enabled

Ghost handles this form automatically:

• data-members-form="subscribe" sends a subscribe email for new members, and if the email already exists, Ghost sends a signin email instead.

For "Paid-members only" - Custom pages show FREE plan too

In Ghost, we do not have a setting/helper/flag to differentiate between "Anyone can signup" and "Paid-members only" for "Who should be able to subscribe to your site?" setting in Membership Access.

Due to this, the Membership page will continue to show the FREE plan too.

If this causes issues with your membership flow, please use_portal_links and handle the membership via Ghost provided Portal links.

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4) If memberships are disabled (@site.members_enabled is false)

This corresponds to Ghost Admin access = Nobody.

Ghost Admin Setting disabling membership access

Subscribe page will not render a sign-up UI. Instead it redirects:

• Portal sign-in hash if use_portal_links ON

• Otherwise /signin/