Back in June I posted here about PayGlue, a relay that connects any payment provider to Ghost membership, not just Stripe. A lot has happened since, so here’s where things actually stand today.
What’s new
Payment providers: Polar was the only one live back then. Now it’s Polar, Lemon Squeezy, PayPal, Gumroad, Paddle, Ko-fi, and most recently Creem.io. Seven providers, same webhook relay underneath.
Open source
PayGlue is now fully open source under BUSL 1.1 (converts to Apache 2.0 in 2030). Self-hosting is free, no license fee. Full code:
Here’s the thing about trust: “hosted in the EU” is a reassurance, but it’s still just my word. You still have to believe me when I say I never touch payment data, never log credentials, whatever. Open source removes that leap of faith. You can read the exact code that handles your webhooks, verify the claims yourself instead of taking them on faith, or just self-host the whole thing and never depend on my infrastructure at all.
https://blog.payglue.io/payglue-is-now-open-source/
For the technically curious
That’s the short version. If you want the full blow-by-blow, every provider integration, every pivot, every “we decided not to build this and here’s why”, it’s all at payglue.io/changelog. Updated as things ship, not just when I remember to post here.
Is there a provider you’re missing?
Genuinely asking: is there a payment provider you’d want to, that isn’t on this list yet? Easier to prioritize the next one if I know what people actually need.
A look inside the dashboard
No big rework story here, just a few sneak peeks from inside, since most people asking about PayGlue have never actually seen the dashboard itself.
The paywall in action
This blog itself runs on PayGlue’s JS paywall, no Stripe connection needed on my end. Wrote up exactly how it’s wired: How This Blog Runs with a PayGlue Paywall
A pricing question for you
I originally planned a simpler pricing setup, but beta feedback caught my eye; not every publisher has a huge paying membership base, so a flatone-size plan didn’t make sense. I ended up with three tiers: Solo (19€/mo, one publication), Studio (39€/mo, up to 3 publications), and Agency (59€/mo, unlimited publications and team members).
Founding Member is the same feature set as Agency, unlimited: pay 29€ once now, use it free during beta, and your rate stays at 6€/mo for life once public pricing kicks in, instead of the regular 59€/mo.
Genuinely curious what this community thinks about the tiers themselves: too high, too low, or about right for the niche?
Why no free tier
Also decided against a free tier, on purpose. Free tiers usually mean monetizing some other way at scale, ads, data, aggressive upsells, and that’s not the business I want to run. A 30-day free trial felt lik: you get to actually try it, and I don’t have to compromise the product to support people who never intended to pay.
Waitlist is still open
The hosted version is still in closed beta, waitlist stays open, and the next batch of invites goes out soon: PayGlue - Join Waitlist . If you self-host instead, everything’s on GitHub now, no waiting required.
Want to follow along? Let’s connect:
- Threads: https://www.threads.com/@payglue.io
- X: André | PayGlue (@PayGlue_io) / X
- Bluesky: @payglue.bsky.social on Bluesky
- Indie Hackers: André | PayGlue (@PayGlue) on Indie Hackers
Cheers,
André
#buildinpublic