Ghost Pricing Plans & Tiers
Open-source publishing platform for newsletters and memberships
Pricing last verified: March 16, 2026
Pricing Analysis
Ghost's fixed pricing (Starter $15/month, Publisher $29/month, Business $199/month) positions as the 'all-in-one publishing alternative' to fragmented stacks of Substack + Stripe + Zapier. The inclusion of custom domain, email newsletter, and integration support on Starter tier directly commoditizes Substack's core offering while providing more control.
The Publisher tier ($29/month, 3 staff users, custom themes, 8K+ integrations) is Ghost's true target—SMB publishers and small agencies wanting branded publications without developer overhead. The $14/month jump from Starter ($15) feels like 2x the price but delivers 3x the staff capacity (1→3 users) and theme customization, creating strong upsell psychology.
Ghost's Business tier ($199/month, 15 staff users) is deliberately expensive to segment enterprise publishers (magazines, news outlets) from SMBs. The 5x price jump from Publisher ($29) to Business ($199) signals that Ghost doesn't want mid-market customers—they're optimizing for either SMB 'at-scale' recurring revenue or enterprise 'high-touch' accounts, skipping the messy $50-150/month middle.
Strengths
- Starter tier ($15/month) includes custom domain, email newsletter, and integrations—feature density that Substack charges 10% revenue share to unlock, creating obvious cost advantage for writers earning $150+/month.
- Publisher tier ($29/month) includes 3 staff users and custom themes, allowing small agencies to white-label Ghost for client publications without per-publication licensing fees.
- All tiers include API access and member subscriptions (with 0% platform take rate), removing Substack's revenue-share tax and creating predictable all-in costs.
Considerations
- Starter tier ($15/month) custom domain inclusion is marketing-driven—domain registration/SSL renewal are commodities, and Ghost's real value is publishing infrastructure, making the 'free domain' feature feel cosmetic.
- Business tier ($199/month) price gap from Publisher ($29) is enormous, leaving no tier for growing publishers scaling to 10-20 staff—forcing mid-market customers to negotiate custom pricing or migrate to Substack.
- Email newsletter analytics (included) lag Substack's integration with third-party analytics tools, requiring custom API integrations for teams needing segment-level engagement data.
Independent publishers and small media companies (2-5 staff) wanting branded publications with email newsletters and zero platform revenue share, replacing Substack for control.
Ghost's Starter tier ($15/month) removes Substack's 10% revenue tax entirely, but lacks Substack's discovery network—a tradeoff favoring cost control over organic growth.
Best choice: Ghost
Try Ghost freePricing Plans (4)
STARTER
- ✓Your own website
- ✓Free custom domain NEW
- ✓Email newsletter
- ✓Simple design settings
- ✓1,000 members
PUBLISHER
- ✓3 staff users
- ✓Custom themes
- ✓8,000+ integrations
- ✓Paid subscriptions
- ✓Advanced analytics
- ✓1,000 members
BUSINESS
- ✓15 staff users
- ✓Priority support
- ✓Higher usage limits
- ✓Early access to features
- ✓10,000 members
CUSTOM
- ✓Unlimited staff users
- ✓Advanced configurations
- ✓Dedicated IP address
- ✓99.9% uptime SLA
- ✓Unlimited members
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Sources
- Ghost Official Pricing— Vendor pricing page
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