Hey everyone! I’m working on a project where someone wants to set up a website that has both free and paid content. The idea is that regular visitors can see some articles, but people who pay a monthly fee get access to special premium posts and newsletters.
I know this kind of setup works really well with Ghost CMS when you connect it to payment services like Stripe and email tools like Mailgun. But I’m curious if Statamic can handle this type of subscription model too. I really like using Statamic for building websites and would prefer to stick with it if possible.
I remember hearing about some plugin called “Charge” that might have done something similar, but it seems like it’s not available anymore. Has anyone here built a paid subscription system using Statamic? What tools or addons did you use to make it work?
i knoow right, jess! its a shame about Charge. a few peeps managed to use statamic’s user groups with stripe, but it can be a bit tricky. maybe look into ghost too? their membership features are pretty smooth and easier to manage.
We did this exact thing 6 months ago and went with a hybrid setup. Kept Statamic for the main site and content management, but added Laravel Cashier for subscriptions. Best of both worlds - Statamic’s great content tools plus Laravel’s solid payment handling. We built a separate auth system that connects to Statamic’s users and checks subscription status before showing premium content. Took some custom middleware work but it’s been rock solid since we launched. The trick was using Statamic as the content layer instead of cramming complex subscription logic into it.
I built a subscription model with Statamic for a client last year. Used Statamic’s user management plus Stripe’s API for payments. Created different user roles for free vs premium subscribers, then used template conditionals to show/hide content based on their status. Had to build a custom webhook handler for Stripe to manage subscription updates and cancellations. Took some dev work but worked great once everything was running. Biggest pain was handling failed payments and auto-renewals. If you’re comfortable with PHP, it’s totally doable - though Ghost might save you time if you’re not locked into Statamic.