Can Ghost Support Multi-Level Access? General, Group-Specific, and Individual Content for Shareholders

Memberships & subscriptions
1

Hi Ghost crew! :waving_hand:

We’re planning to move our investor update system to Ghost and are wondering if the following setup is possible using Ghost’s native membership + tiers features (and we’re happy to implement custom solutions or workarounds if needed):

:brick: Our Use Case (Simplified with an Analogy):

Imagine a publishing site like Ghost.com that wants to manage content access like this:

  1. General Shareholder Access
    :megaphone: Example: Alice is a shareholder in any fund. She should see broad updates like “Ghost now issues digital certificates for all shareholders.”
    2.Tier logic:* This would be available to all paid members across any tier.
  2. Fund-Specific Shareholder Access
    :bar_chart: Example: Bob is a shareholder in “Ghost Select Fund I” and should see updates like “Ghost Select I just invested in a Web3 project.”
    4.Tier logic:* Bob’s paid tier (e.g. Ghost Select I) would unlock access to this fund-specific content.
  3. Individual Shareholder Access
    :file_folder: Example: Carol has her own page with downloadable share certificates and custom messages.
    Tier logic challenge: We’d need “one-to-one” content visibility. Possibly 1 member per private tier or label. We know this might be a stretch — is there a creative or hacky way to implement this?

:white_check_mark: What We’ve Found So Far:

  • Ghost supports multiple paid tiers via Stripe and allows post-level access per tier, which helps with point #2.
  • Content visibility can be limited to users with access using {{#if access}}, which is helpful for cleaning up front-end views.
  • Labels might help with segmentation but don’t support access restrictions directly.
  • Customizing Portal or member dashboards might be needed for point #3.

:rocket: Our Question:

Is Ghost capable of supporting this 3-level member content structure, natively or with workarounds?
And for point #3 — any advice on how we could handle “one-member-only” content? Is it feasible to have 1-person tiers, or should we explore external integrations?

:paperclip: Bonus Context:

We’re doing this for a private investment group with a small, high-trust user base, so manual or customized workflows are acceptable.
Also happy to hop on a call with the Ghost team or collaborate with developers if needed.

:link: We’ve also emailed support and created a Ghost Developer Brief if helpful. Happy to share more if needed!

Looking forward to your thoughts — and thank you in advance! :raising_hands:

— Josh

2

Hi!

(I don’t work for Ghost.org. I’m a freelancer and community contributor.)

I’m not convinced that Ghost is the right choice here, at least not for all parts.

Part 1 is fine. You’ve got a newsletter, and you send it to a bunch of folks, or you’ve got a portion of your site for a bunch of folks.

Part 2 is possibly the start of the trouble. Tiers do the behavior you want, but as soon as you have someone who is a shareholder in two funds, meaning they need to be in two tiers, you’re doing something that isn’t well supported. Portal, which is the React app that manages memberships for Ghost, doesn’t deal with users with multiple tiers. The back-end Ember app that does Ghost’s admin dashboard isn’t going to support putting a member into two tiers manually. The underlying API is /probably/ fine, but you’re going to need to replace/rewrite some substantial bits of member management. And no guarantees that the underlying API is actually bug free, because nearly everyone uses Portal, which doesn’t support this, so no one has been hitting any single-tier assumptions.

Part 3 - Not with labels. The content API won’t protect content by label, only by tier, and there are some issues around labels that you don’t fully control which ones get applied. [A custom-created magic link request to create a new member can include a list of labels.] This is largely a continuation of your problems in part 2.

I think you’re going to spend quite a bit of developer effort on making Ghost do this thing that it isn’t really set up to do. It might make more sense to look for something that’s a closer fit to what you’re looking for.

Alternative:
Use Ghost for part 1. That’s what it’s for.
Use Ghost for part 2, but use labels to indicate who should read what. Restrict your content to paid tiers (protecting it from the public), but don’t fuss about perfect fund-specific restrictions.*
Edit the theme to show each user the content that matches their labels, but don’t worry too much if Ghost Select II has hacky access to Ghost Select I. [*I’m thinking about the fund prospectus news I get from my investment co. There are no secrets there, so if I got access to someone else’s, it wouldn’t matter. But I expect to only see my own.] You can send newsletters based on member labels, so if you’re thinking email rather than web, this still works.

Use something else for Part 3. Probably some sort of document delivery service. Link to it from the member’s account page for their convenience.

Hope that helps!

2 Likes
3

Hi Cathy,

Thank you so much for your detailed and insightful response. We truly appreciate the time you took to analyze our use case and share your expertise.

Your breakdown of the challenges associated with implementing multi-tiered access in Ghost, especially concerning parts 2 and 3 of our requirements, has been incredibly helpful. We now have a clearer understanding of the limitations within Ghost’s current architecture, particularly regarding:

  • Multiple Tiers per Member: As you’ve pointed out, Ghost doesn’t natively support assigning multiple tiers to a single member. This poses a significant challenge for our scenario, where some shareholders might belong to multiple funds.​
  • Content Access via Labels: While labels offer a way to segment members, they don’t provide the necessary access control for content. This limitation affects our ability to deliver fund-specific updates securely.​

Given these constraints, your suggestion to:

  1. Utilize Ghost for General Updates (Part 1): This aligns well with Ghost’s strengths, and we can continue using it to disseminate general shareholder information.​
  2. Consider Alternative Solutions for Fund-Specific and Individual Content (Parts 2 & 3): We’re now exploring other platforms or custom solutions that can better accommodate these requirements.​

Your perspective has been invaluable in guiding our next steps. If you have any recommendations for platforms or tools that might better suit our needs, we’d be eager to hear them.

Thanks once again for your support and guidance!

Best regards,

Josh