Allow users to donate an amount of their choice instead of a subscription model
Yo! I think the best way to implement this is with the aptly named ‘Buy Me A Coffee’:
They allow you to generate an embed which you can drop directly into your Ghost site 
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That is there of course but a built-in one time donation option would be better.
Why? Because Buy Me a Coffee charges 5% fee. Then Stripe and Paypal charge their own transaction fee to get the money from Buy Me a Coffee to your account.
This increases the payout commission to 10%.
Considering that Ghost already integrate with Stripe natively to provide membership, I believe a native Buy Me a Coffee like solution will enhance the goal of Ghost (i.e. to provide a complete solution to independent publishers).
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Or You can use Patreon for your site.
1 Like
Zapier just released a ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ integration: New integration: Connect with your fans with Buy Me a Coffee - Updates | Zapier
Connect to your Ghost site with instructions here: Connect your Buy-Me-A-Coffee to Ghost integration in 2 minutes | Zapier
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We use Ko-Fi for one-off donations, they don’t take a fee and it’s connected to Stripe too. We have it embedded into our sidebar
However, have still voted - for us it’s less donated. We’re looking for a ‘choose your own price’ - so the emphasis is still on recurring payments for access. Or indeed, a choose your own price tier, so you can set what you get with this.
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One way to do this - that some Ghost users have been doing for a while - is to create a Stripe product for $1 with a payment link with an adjustable quantity.
So if someone wants to tip/donate $1 they set the quantity to 1, if they want to donate $5, set quantity to 5
Here’s a demo (click the illustration on the page)
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There is actually a Donation function —something Stripe calls a product, along with other payment functions— in Stripe, but after adding that as a link, they threatened to close my account, claiming that my site was crowdfunding which is listed as a Restricted Businesses 
The definition I found online was along the lines that crowdfunding is for a project that likely gives something back to the investors, while a donation is a gift of appreciation with no strings attached.
I’ve gone back and forth with their email support and finally got a call to speak with someone. NONE of what transpired in those exchanges resembled clear communication that would lead to the resolution of whatever the perceived problem was.
I am extremely unhappy with Stripe as a whole as a result and therefore between a rock and a hard place since Ghost only integrates with this Stripe trainwreck.
In the meantime, I created a donation button on SquareUp … to hell with Stripe.
That’s my 2¢ today … eerrrrr 
1 Like
I know most have not given Outpost.pub a chance yet but i’ve became a huge fan. I won’t go into everything they do but one of them is build you several types of tip jars. One for all members, one for paid post only etc. and a few other kinds.
Here are a few of the the built for me code they automatically create and put for you on a draft post, so that you can then save them as a snippets.
<div class="outpost-pub-container">
<div style="text-align: center">
<a target="_blank" href="https://jetsetteralertscom.outpost.pub/donate" style="font-family: Nunito, sans-serif;font-size: 16px;border-collapse: collapse;word-wrap: break-word;box-sizing: border-box;text-decoration: none;display: inline-block;font-weight: 500;text-align: center;vertical-align: middle;user-select: none;border: 1px solid transparent;padding: 0.375rem 0.75rem;line-height: 1.6;border-radius: 0.25rem;transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out, background-color 0.15s ease-in-out, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out, box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out;color: #ffffff;background-color: #15171a;border-color: #15171a;cursor: pointer;padding: 4px 10px;">Tip Jar</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="outpost-pub-container visible-paid-only" style="display: none;"><div style="text-align: center">
<a target="_blank" href="https://jetsetteralertscom.outpost.pub/donate" style="font-family: Nunito, sans-serif;font-size: 16px;border-collapse: collapse;word-wrap: break-word;box-sizing: border-box;text-decoration: none;display: inline-block;font-weight: 500;text-align: center;vertical-align: middle;user-select: none;border: 1px solid transparent;padding: 0.375rem 0.75rem;line-height: 1.6;border-radius: 0.25rem;transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out, background-color 0.15s ease-in-out, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out, box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out;color: #ffffff;background-color: #15171a;border-color: #15171a;cursor: pointer;padding: 4px 10px;">Tip Jar</a></div></div>
They do it all for you and not to mention their auto responder and new member funnel is a god send.
They also make offers to those who cancel, and try to save them by offering discount codes (You build it all using their software that fully integrates with ghost).
I’m sure the code experts will do fine without the bridge that outpost provides, but its truly been amazing for me.
Anyways, I am a huge fan of outpost and the void they have filled for those who aren’t tech savvy like me, And all of these features are included with the 1st tier plan. It’s like $18 per month for the plan I have, and Outpost will let you fully test it out with no restrictions for free for 3 weeks and no credit card needed.
Yes it seems like a one man op and the admin portal UX is not great, but it gets the job done and the more people who sign up will only make Outpost better by having more funds.
Note: This is my own opinion and have 0 affiliation with them other than being a happy customer.
3 Likes
I have been following the Ghost GitHub changes and since its open source you can see what is being worked on. It seems tips and donations might be coming … #spoiler
I can recommend Raisely and its optimized embedded donation form. It’s entirely free, you only pay Stripe’s commission.
1 Like
Ghost now supports tips and donations: