  We develop a framework to construct moduli spaces of $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein
pairs. To do so, we fix certain invariants; these choices are encoded in the
notion of $\mathbb{Q}$-stable pair. We show that these choices give a proper
moduli space with projective coarse moduli space and they prevent some
pathologies of the moduli space of stable pairs when the coefficients are
smaller than $\frac{1}{2}$. Lastly, we apply this machinery to provide an
alternative proof of the projectivity of the moduli space of stable pairs.
