Ghost
"Expert Review: Ghost is the absolute best option for professional writers and media businesses who have outgrown Substack. By switching from Substack to Ghost, a publication making five thousand dollars a month will instantly save hundreds of dollars every single month because Ghost charges a flat fee instead of a percentage cut. The writing experience is incredibly fast and clean, and the level of design customization is unmatched. It requires more setup effort than Substack, but the financial and creative freedom is entirely worth it."
- Flat monthly pricing means huge cost savings as subscription revenue grows
- Distraction free editor is exceptionally fast and clean to write in
- Complete ownership of your code, design, data, and subscriber relations
- No third party transaction fees other than standard Stripe processing
- Very fast load times and excellent web core vitals performance
- No built in discovery network comparable to the Substack community
- Customizing themes and code requires technical skills or developer help
- No free tier on the official managed hosting service
Key Features
Flat Fee Subscriptions
Collect paid subscriber revenue through Stripe with zero platform commission fees
Dynamic Content Editor
Write with a distraction free editor that outputs both beautiful web pages and clean emails
Built in Member Portals
Gate premium content and manage customer signups natively without extra plugins
Custom Themes and APIs
Build completely bespoke newsletter websites with unrestricted code access
Advanced SEO Controls
Configure metadata, search previews, and sitemaps automatically with zero plugins
Pricing Plans
$9/mo
- ✓ Up to 500 subscribers
- ✓ Official Ghost(Pro) managed hosting with SSL and CDN
- ✓ Standard built-in responsive themes
- ✓ 1 staff user and core integrations
$25/mo
- ✓ Up to 1,000 subscribers
- ✓ Full custom theme support and API access
- ✓ 2 staff users
- ✓ Integrate with 1,000+ third-party tools via Zapier
$50/mo
- ✓ Up to 1,000 subscribers
- ✓ Priority customer support
- ✓ 5 staff users
- ✓ Custom theme development and custom integrations
About Ghost
Ghost is a modern, blazing fast publishing platform that serves as a self hosted or managed alternative to Substack and WordPress. It was built specifically for independent journalists, publications, and professional creators who want complete control over their brand, code, and subscriber data. Unlike Substack, Ghost takes zero transaction fees from your subscription revenue, charging only a flat monthly hosting fee.
The editor in Ghost is a masterpiece of minimalist design, supporting dynamic content cards, image galleries, and email personalization tokens. You can easily publish a post to your website and deliver it as a beautiful email newsletter simultaneously. Paid memberships are built directly into the core, making it simple to gate exclusive content and process Stripe payments.
Ghost is incredibly customizable, allowing developers to build completely bespoke themes using custom code and APIs. The platform also includes a rich suite of built in SEO features and responsive layouts. The primary limitation is the lack of a built in recommendations ecosystem, meaning you must drive your own traffic, and setting up custom themes requires some technical proficiency.