How We Built Location-Based Membership Pricing in Ghost CMS for SGI-UK's Art of Living Magazine

Client: SGI-UK (Soka Gakkai International UK)
Website: Art of Living Digital Magazine
Industry: Publishing & Membership
Services: Ghost CMS Development, Membership Customization, Geo-Targeted Pricing

Overview

Art of Living is the official digital magazine of SGI-UK, publishing stories, perspectives, and content for readers across the United Kingdom and around the world.

As the publication expanded its digital membership offering, a challenge emerged: subscription pricing needed to vary depending on where visitors were located. Members in the UK, European Union, and the rest of the world all required different pricing structures, yet Ghost's standard membership experience did not support location-based pricing out of the box.

SGI-UK needed a solution that would deliver the correct pricing automatically while maintaining a simple, seamless membership journey.

The Challenge

The publication serves an international audience, but subscription costs differ across regions due to operational and market considerations.

The team needed a membership experience that could:

• Display UK pricing to visitors in the United Kingdom
• Display EU pricing to visitors within the European Union
• Display international pricing for visitors outside those regions
• Keep the signup process simple and intuitive
• Work within their existing Ghost CMS infrastructure
• Maintain a consistent user experience across desktop and mobile devices

Most importantly, visitors should never have to manually select their region before subscribing.

Our Approach

Rather than introducing a separate membership platform, we extended the existing Ghost membership experience with a custom-built location-aware pricing system.

Geo-Location Detection

We implemented visitor location detection that identifies the user's region when they access the membership page.

Based on the detected location, the system automatically determines whether the visitor belongs to:

• United Kingdom
• European Union
• Rest of World

Dynamic Membership Pricing

Once the visitor's region is identified, the membership page dynamically displays the appropriate subscription options.

Visitors see pricing relevant to their location without needing to change settings or select a country manually.

This creates a more natural purchasing experience and reduces friction during signup.

Ghost CMS Integration

The solution was designed to work alongside Ghost's membership infrastructure rather than replacing it.

This allowed SGI-UK to continue managing content, members, newsletters, and subscriptions through Ghost while benefiting from a tailored pricing experience.

Performance & User Experience

Because the pricing logic operates automatically in the background, visitors experience a fast and seamless membership journey.

The membership page remains clean, easy to understand, and optimized for conversion.

The Result

The final solution delivered a fully customized membership experience tailored to SGI-UK's international audience.

Key Outcomes

• Automatic location-based pricing
• Separate pricing for UK, EU, and international members
• No manual country selection required
• Seamless integration with Ghost CMS
• Simplified membership purchasing experience
• Improved pricing accuracy for global audiences
• Easy ongoing management for the editorial team

Why This Matters

Many publishers have readers spread across multiple countries but struggle to offer region-specific pricing without introducing complex ecommerce systems.

This project demonstrates how Ghost CMS can be extended beyond its default capabilities to support sophisticated membership workflows while preserving the simplicity that publishers value.

By combining custom development with Ghost's membership platform, SGI-UK gained a solution that feels native to the site while serving the needs of a global readership.

Looking for Custom Ghost Membership Development?

Every publication has unique membership requirements.

Whether you need location-based pricing, custom payment flows, membership portals, subscription migrations, paywall customization, or bespoke Ghost CMS development, we help publishers build solutions that fit their business rather than forcing them into platform limitations.

Explore our Ghost CMS Services to learn how we help organizations, magazines, and membership-driven publications get more from Ghost.