Payload Stack
The SaaS boilerplate for Payload CMS.
Payload Stack is an open-source SaaS boilerplate on Payload CMS 3 and Next.js 16. It ships the parts every product needs before the product itself exists, already connected:
- Authentication with Better Auth through payload-auth: email and password, magic links, passkeys, TOTP two-factor, social sign-in and impersonation. One session for your app and the Payload admin.
- Organizations using Better Auth's organization plugin as the source of truth, bridged into
@payloadcms/plugin-multi-tenantso every tenant-scoped collection is enforced in the API and in the admin. - Billing with
@better-auth/stripe: plans from config, per user or per organization, seats, trials, the customer portal and webhooks. - UI with Tailwind v4, shadcn/ui and Better Auth UI for auth screens, account and security settings, organization management and billing. The dashboard shell is shadcn's
sidebar-08. - Back office: Payload's admin at
/adminfor users, organizations, subscriptions, content and support, with a tenant selector. - Email with React Email templates sent through Payload's email adapter.
- Content: legal pages as a collection (seeded), media with a storage adapter of your choice (Vercel Blob, S3, R2, Azure, GCS, Uploadthing), rich text.
Everything product-specific is declared once in src/stack.config.ts and validated with zod. Turn organizations or billing off and the related UI, plugins and collections disappear.
npx create-payload-stack@latestGetting started
Scaffold, run, create your admin, sign up.
Configuration
Every option in stack.config.ts.
Organizations
How Better Auth organizations become Payload tenants.
Billing
Plans, Stripe keys, webhooks, seats and trials.
Versions
| Dependency | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Payload | 3.88 | Payload 4 is canary-only and not yet supported by payload-auth. Migration is on the roadmap. |
| Next.js | 16.3 | App Router, Turbopack |
| Better Auth | 1.7 | via payload-auth 3.0 |
| Better Auth UI | 1.7 | shadcn registry components, vendored into src/components/auth |
| shadcn/ui | radix-nova style | Tailwind v4 |
License
MIT. Payload Stack is a payload.solutions project.