Ghost vs Substack Comparison 2026
Ghost costs a fixed fee regardless of revenue, Starter at $15 a month billed yearly for 1,000 members, and takes nothing from subscriptions beyond that. Substack costs nothing to start and takes 10 percent of paid subscription revenue instead, in exchange for Notes and recommendations from other writers finding readers for you. Ghost's own arithmetic is direct: it wins above roughly $300 a month in subscriptions and loses below it. What Substack sells that Ghost cannot is the network.
Publishing and paid subscriptions, open source
Paid subscriptions with a reader network attached
At a glance
- Only Substack has a free tier.
- Ghost takes no share of what you earn. Substack takes 10%.
Side by side
Ghost | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $15 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing (they differ) | Monthly or annual | Usage-based |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
Ghost
Publishing and paid subscriptions, open source
Ghost is what a writer picks who wants Substack's economics without Substack's cut, and it takes nothing from subscription revenue beyond the hosting fee. The editor is quiet and fast, and the whole thing is open source, so a technical creator can host it themselves for the cost of a server. Doing that means you are the support team.
Our note
Against Substack the maths is simple: Ghost costs a fixed fee and Substack costs 10 percent of everything, so Ghost wins above roughly $300 a month in subscriptions and loses below it. What Substack sells that Ghost cannot is the network that finds you readers.
Only on this side
- Covers website builders
Substack
Paid subscriptions with a reader network attached
Substack takes 10 percent of subscription revenue and gives you distribution in return, through Notes and recommendations from other writers. That trade is good early and expensive later. Exporting your list is easy, which makes it a reasonable place to start.
Why people weigh these two
- Substack instead of Ghost
- Substack costs nothing to start and comes with a built-in reader network Ghost does not have, but it keeps 10 percent of paid subscription revenue that Ghost does not touch.
- Ghost instead of Substack
- Ghost is self-hosted, open source publishing bought for $15 a month rather than rented from a platform, for a writer who wants to own the software instead of owing Substack a percentage.
Which one should you pick
Pick Ghost once a paid newsletter has real subscription revenue and the 10 percent Substack would take has started to sting. Starter is $15 a month billed yearly at 1,000 members, though paid subscriptions specifically need Publisher at $29. The setup is the hard part if a DNS record has never been touched before; that is the real cost of the fixed fee.
Pick Substack to publish this week with no plan to choose and no evidence yet that anybody will pay for the writing. It costs nothing until subscription revenue arrives, then 10 percent of it, and Notes and recommendations from other writers are where most Substack growth actually comes from. Move the list the year that 10 percent passes what a flat-fee platform like Ghost would charge, which its own guidance says arrives sooner than most writers plan for.
Common questions
- At what point does Ghost become cheaper than Substack?
- Ghost's own guidance puts the crossover at roughly $300 a month in subscription revenue: below that, Substack's 10 percent costs less than Ghost's flat fee, and above it, Ghost wins. Substack costs nothing until subscription revenue starts, so it is always cheaper at zero.
- What does Substack offer that Ghost does not?
- Distribution: Notes and recommendations from other writers, which is where most Substack growth actually comes from. Ghost has no equivalent built-in reader network; growth there depends on the writer's own channels and search traffic.
- Does Ghost take a percentage of subscription revenue like Substack does?
- No, Ghost states no payment fees at any tier; the only cost is the flat hosting fee. Substack takes 10 percent of paid subscription revenue, with Stripe's processing fee on top of that.
- Is it easy to move a list from Substack to Ghost later?
- Substack's own guidance says exporting your list is easy, which is what makes it a reasonable place to start and move on from later. Ghost's pricing is built around member count from the start, so moving a list in means picking the tier that fits its size.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.