Side by side
| Ghost | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. It is free to start. Charges apply only when a writer takes payments. |
| 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. | A share of revenue. Writers keep 90% of their revenue minus credit card fees, so Substack's share is 10%. |
| 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. | Podcasts can be published to Substack, Apple, Spotify and YouTube. |
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 Substack is
Substack puts writers, creators and subscribers in charge of a new media model. It is free to start and free to leave.
A newsletter operator can publish posts, mark each post free or paid-only, host podcasts, and grow through recommendations, Notes and the Substack app.
Creators own their content and subscriber list.
Which one fits
This is a flat fee against a revenue share. Ghost has no free tier, and its Starter plan is $18 a month billed yearly. Substack costs nothing to start and keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue, plus card fees.
Ghost charges 0% Ghost transaction fees on its Publisher plan and above, with payment processor fees still applying. A newsletter with no paying readers pays nothing on Substack and a monthly fee on Ghost. As paid revenue grows, 10% of it passes a flat fee, which is the point where Ghost's pricing costs less.
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.
How much does Substack take?
Writers keep 90% of their revenue minus credit card fees. That makes Substack's share 10%, with card fees taken on top.
Do I own my subscriber list?
Yes. Writers own their content and their subscriber list, and Substack is free to leave.