Getting started

Quick start

The fastest path from a Fold .zip to seeing an actual paywall on your own site. About ten minutes if Members is already set up on your Ghost site, a little longer if you're enabling it for the first time.

Before you start

You'll need:

• A Ghost site on Ghost 5.0 or later (Fold's minimum supported version), with admin access.
• The Fold theme .zip.
• Ghost's Members feature turned on, with at least one paid Tier — otherwise there's nothing for the theme to gate, and you won't see the fold at all. See Turning on Members and Tiers if you haven't done this yet.

The checklist

1. Upload and activate

   In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Design and branding → Change theme → Upload theme, select the Fold .zip, then activate it. Full detail: Installation.

2. Confirm Members and a paid Tier are on

   Settings → Membership — if this is already configured for your site, skip ahead. If not, enable it and create at least one paid Tier before continuing, or the next step won't do anything visible.

3. Set Fold's three theme settings

   Settings → Design and branding → Theme settings: turn Show publication intro on or off, and write your own Paywall text and Email signup text instead of the defaults. Reference: Fold's theme settings.

4. Gate a post

   Open a post (or write a new one), and in the editor's Access setting, change it from Public to Members-only or Paid-members-only. Publish it.

5. View it as a logged-out visitor

   Open the post in a private/incognito window. You should see the free preview, then the torn edge, then the red MEMBERS ONLY fold with your subscribe button. If you're logged in as a member with access, you'll see the full post instead — that's correct behavior, not a bug.

See it live

The Fold demo site runs the theme with a real gated post, so you can compare what you're seeing against a known-good reference at any point in this checklist.