Ghost

Ghost is a publishing platform with newsletters and paid memberships built in. It suits a solo writer, teacher or expert who wants to charge for content and own the site, the list and the brand. It is more than you need if you only want a free newsletter, and it asks for more setup than a simple blog host.

Ghost(Pro) is the official managed hosting. On the maker's pricing page, paid subscriptions and tips are listed on the Publisher and Business plans and are not listed on Starter. Ghost lists a 0% transaction fee on those plans, so Ghost does not take a cut of your subscriptions, although your payment processor still charges its own fees. Prices on the page are in US dollars and quoted for yearly billing, so the monthly cost is higher than the headline figure. A free trial is offered, but the length is not stated on the pricing page, so check it before you sign up.

• Starter: a publication without paid subscriptions.
• Publisher: paid memberships, more integrations and custom themes.
• Business: more staff users and a higher member limit.

• Start a trial, pick a theme and connect your own domain.
• Connect Stripe so members can pay, then create a free tier and one paid tier.
• Write three posts before you launch: one free sample, one members-only post and a welcome page.
• Import any existing list as a CSV and send a first newsletter.

The advertised price is for yearly billing. Member limits apply on each plan, and moving to a higher plan is the usual way past them. Ghost is also open source, so you can self-host it, but that means you run the server and the updates yourself.

Substack is the simplest start but takes a share of paid revenue and gives you less control. beehiiv focuses on newsletter growth. WordPress with a membership plugin is flexible but more to maintain. For email alone, see Kit.

Ghost is the publishing layer in our Paid Newsletter stack, paired with Stripe for payments and Notion for planning.