Ghost Release: 5.82.5

TL;DR

Ghost v5.82.5: Stripe Tax Checkout Fix for Free Member Upgrades

This minor release fixes an issue with Stripe Tax checkout for free members upgrading their accounts. The update ensures that when free members upgrade to paid plans with automatic tax enabled, their billing address information is properly captured and used for tax calculations. This is achieved by adding a new customer_update parameter to the Stripe API integration.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed Stripe Tax checkout for free members upgrading to paid plans
• Added customer_update parameter to Stripe API to properly handle address information
• Improved compatibility with Stripe's automatic tax calculation requirements

Migration Guide

No migration steps are required for this release. The fix is applied automatically when you update to Ghost v5.82.5.

Upgrade Recommendations

This upgrade is recommended for all Ghost users who:

• Use Stripe for processing payments
• Have automatic tax calculation enabled
• Offer both free and paid membership tiers

The update ensures a smooth checkout experience for free members upgrading to paid plans with tax calculation enabled. Since this is a minor bug fix release with no breaking changes, it should be safe to apply without extensive testing.

Bug Fixes

Stripe Tax Checkout Fix

Fixed an issue where free members were unable to upgrade their accounts when automatic tax calculation was enabled in Stripe. The problem occurred because Stripe requires a valid address on the Customer record to calculate taxes properly.

The fix adds the customer_update[address]:auto parameter to the Stripe API call when processing upgrades for existing customers. This ensures that:

• Billing address information entered during checkout is properly saved to the customer record
• Stripe can successfully calculate tax rates based on the provided address
• The checkout process completes without errors for free members upgrading to paid plans

This addresses the issue documented in ENG-881.

New Features

No significant new features were added in this release. The changes focus on fixing an existing bug with the Stripe Tax checkout process.

Security Updates

No security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

No specific performance improvements were included in this release. The changes focus on fixing functionality rather than improving performance.

Impact Summary

This release addresses a specific issue with Stripe Tax checkout for free members upgrading to paid plans. While the change is relatively small in scope (adding a parameter to the Stripe API calls), it has a significant impact on the user experience and revenue collection for sites using Stripe's automatic tax calculation feature.

The fix ensures that when free members attempt to upgrade to paid plans, their billing address information is properly captured and used for tax calculations, allowing the checkout process to complete successfully. This eliminates a potential source of lost revenue and user frustration.

The implementation follows Stripe's recommended approach for handling customer updates during checkout, making Ghost fully compatible with Stripe's requirements for automatic tax calculation.

Full Release Notes