Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover website builders. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Ghost | Webflow | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $15 | From $15 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Website Builders, Memberships & Subscriptions, Newsletter & Email | Website Builders, Landing Pages & Funnels |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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
Design a site visually and ship real code
Webflow gives a designer the CSS box model as a set of panels, so the thing you draw is the thing that ships, with no theme fighting you. Its CMS handles a real content model rather than a blog with extra fields. The learning curve is genuinely steep, and somebody who has never thought about flex or position will spend a week before it clicks.
Only on this side
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.