Side by side
| Ghost | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No. There is no free tier. Starter, Publisher and Business each have a Try for free button, and a 14-day free trial is offered. | Yes. Free for up to 250 contacts with a maximum of 500 sends a month or 250 a day, 1 seat and 1 audience. Mailchimp branding stays on and generative AI is not included. |
| Starting price | Starter is $18 a month, billed yearly. No monthly billing price is published. | Not published. |
| How it charges | By plan and member count. Publisher, Business and Custom charge 0% Ghost transaction fees, and payment processor fees still apply. | By contact tier. Paid plans bill monthly or annually at the rate for your tier, and overages are billed automatically when limits are passed. Pay-as-you-go email credits are an alternative for infrequent senders. |
| Works with | Stripe, Slack, Zapier, Mailchimp, GitHub, Google Analytics, Discord and Spotify, among a long integrations library that also includes Buttondown, ConvertKit, Mailerlite and Patreon. | Shopify, WooCommerce, Canva, Zapier, Square, Stripe, Salesforce, WordPress and QuickBooks, among 300+ integrations. |
| AI features | Not published. | Generative AI features are on the Standard and Premium plans, not on Free or Essentials. Intuit Intelligence is in beta with limited availability and can make mistakes. |
Prices and plans change. We checked these figures on October 10, 2026, so confirm them before you buy.
What Ghost is
Ghost is an app for professional publishers to create, share and grow a business around their content. It bundles a website, publishing, newsletters and paid subscriptions.
A newsletter operator can publish to the web and by email, offer free or paid membership tiers, and send different newsletters to different audience segments.
Ghost is open source, independent and funded 100% by its users, and is run by a non-profit foundation.
What Mailchimp is
Mailchimp is an email and SMS marketing platform with automations, analytics and AI tools. Example users include restaurants, non-profits, ecommerce, small businesses and professional services.
A newsletter operator can use it for email campaigns, templates, popup forms, audience tools and reporting. SMS is an add-on in select countries and needs approval.
It connects with 300+ apps.
Which one fits
Ghost is a publishing platform with a website, newsletters and paid memberships. Mailchimp is an email and SMS marketing platform. That difference shows in the pricing.
Ghost has no free tier and starts at $18 a month billed yearly, with fees set by plan and member count. Mailchimp's free plan covers up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, and paid plans rise by contact tier. If your newsletter lives on a site with memberships, Ghost fits that. If you mainly send campaigns and automations, Mailchimp fits that. Ghost also integrates with Mailchimp.
Does Ghost have a free plan?
No. There is no free tier. The Starter, Publisher and Business plans each have a Try for free button, and a 14-day free trial is offered.
Can I take paid subscriptions on every plan?
No. Starter does not include paid subscriptions. Publisher, Business and Custom do, with 0% Ghost transaction fees.
Does Mailchimp have a free plan?
Yes. It allows up to 250 contacts, 500 sends a month or 250 a day, 1 seat and 1 audience. Sending pauses if a limit is exceeded.
Is there a free trial of paid plans?
Yes. There is a 14-day free trial that needs valid payment information at sign-up. Canceling during the trial incurs no charge.