Ghost

What's Free (Self-Hosted)

Everything. Memberships, newsletters, paid subscriptions, custom integrations, unlimited members. MIT licensed with no feature gating.

Self-Hosting Cost

• Minimum: $5 to $10/mo VPS. 1GB of RAM works for a small site.
• Production: $20 to $40/mo VPS with 2GB or more, a database, and a transactional email provider. Mailgun runs about $0.80 per 1,000 emails.
• Email scales with the list: 10,000 subscribers on a weekly newsletter is roughly 40,000 emails/mo, about $32/mo of sending.

Ghost Pro (managed, billed yearly)

• Starter: $15/mo. 1,000 members, your own website, free custom domain, email newsletter, simple design settings.
• Publisher: $29/mo. 1,000 members, 3 staff users, custom themes, 8,000+ integrations, paid subscriptions, advanced analytics.
• Business: $199/mo. 10,000 members, 15 staff users, priority support, higher usage limits, early access to features.
• Custom: quoted. Unlimited staff and members, dedicated IP, 99.9% uptime SLA.

Monthly billing costs more than these yearly rates.

The Math

Self-hosting at 5,000 subscribers runs about $20/mo of server plus $16/mo of email, call it $36/mo. The same list on Ghost Pro needs the Business tier at $199/mo, because Starter and Publisher both cap at 1,000 members. The gap is real and it costs you 4 to 6 hours a month of ops.

When to Pay

Ghost Pro is the right call for a writer who does not want to own a server. The 1,000-member cap is the number to watch, because it arrives long before the price does. Self-host if you are technical and expect to pass it, since that is exactly where the curve turns against you.