This guide will help you perform the prerequisites to begin accepting Lightning payments for your content on a Ghost Blog.

If you have any questions on these instructions, please reach out to dj@tftc.io for support.

Without further ado, let's get started!

Configure Your Ghost Blog

Before you start monetizing your blog with Lightning, first you need a blog.

To understand your options for hosting, head over to the Ghost docs. Ghost offers simple, managed hosting with a free trial, but the beauty of Ghost is that it is open source and can be selfhosted for extra sovereignty and control.

Don't worry too much about making the correct decision up front. Content migration between Ghost instances is a simple process, so you can always change your mind later.

Create a Ghost Custom Integration

Now that you have a blog, let's get started on the integration!

In order for our integration to read your paid posts and present them to your users, we will require some keys to connect to your Ghost site.

To get the required keys, you will create a "Custom Integration" in your Ghost settings. Follow the instructions here to create a new Custom Integration. Keep the page open – we'll use those values later.

Configure Your Payment Processor

Now that you've created an integration in Ghost, the next step is to choose and configure your payment processor to integrate with your Ghost site.

Set Up a Payment Processor

We currently support the following payment processors:

BTCPay Server + Lightning

BTCPay Server is a self-hosted, open-source cryptocurrency payment processor. It's secure, private, censorship-resistant and free. If you are concerned with privacy and censorship resistance, you should choose to integrate with BTCPay Server.

For instructions to selfhost your BTCPay node with Lightning, head on over to the BTCPay Docs.

If you'd rather have someone host your BTCPay Server on your behalf, check out Voltage, which offers user-friendly and secure hosting for Lightning and BTCPay nodes.

OpenNode

OpenNode is a centralized service which simplifies the process of accepting Lightning payments. If you're not extremely concerned with privacy or censorship-resistance for your blog, OpenNode may be a great option.

OpenNode manages channels and liquidity for you, so you can focus on your content instead of your liquidity. However, OpenNode requires identity verification and takes a 1% fee on all transactions.

If OpenNode is right for you, head on over to https://www.opennode.com/ to sign up.

Configure Payment Processor for Ghost Integration

Now that you've chosen and set up your payment processor, we need to configure an integration so our server can create Lightning invoices on your behalf.

Follow the steps below to configure your payment processor for our integration.

Configure BTCPay Integration

If you've chosen BTCPay as your payment processor, the next step it to create a Custom Integration for our service in BTCPay.

To create a Custom integration in BTCPay, head over to your BTCPay store settings, and navigate to the "Access Tokens" tab.

Select +Create token. Add a label for your access token, and select Request Paring.

Click Approve, and note down the Server initiated pairing code. You'll need it for the next step.

Configure OpenNode Integration

If you've chosen OpenNode as your payment processor, the next step it to create an integration API Key for our service in OpenNode.

To create the integration, head to the OpenNode Developer Settings and select Integrations.

Select +Add Key, add a label for your key, and select the Invoices permission.

Click Genertate, and note down the key. You'll need it for the next step.

Onboard to Integration

Kudos for getting this far! The only thing that remains is to connect those  integrations together.

Signing up for the integration is currently a semi-manual process. We are in the process of fully automating the signup process, but in the meantime we would be happy to onboard you manually.

To sign yourself up to be onboarded, please complete the below form.

To prevent spam, the signup form is behind the paywall. After you've completed all the steps above, please unlock the paywall and submit the form.

We'll register you and reach out with next steps ASAP.