beehiiv or Ghost: which newsletter costs a UK creator less?
Affiliate note: Occono may earn a commission if you use the beehiiv, Make or Systeme.io links on this page, at no extra cost to you. The Ghost links are not affiliate links. Occono does not earn from Ghost. Affiliate disclosure. Website terms.
Quick summary
Send a free letter on beehiiv. Pay Ghost when the site has to be yours, or when readers are already paying.
Best when the letter is free and the list is still under 2,500 people: beehiiv. The free plan is $0, with no card, up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends. Paid subscriptions are listed on the Lite card. With the page set to 1,000 subscribers and yearly billing, on 30 October 2026, Lite showed $49 a month. We earn from beehiiv.
Best when you will pay from the first month, you want the publication in your own name, or readers pay you for the letter: Ghost, on Ghost(Pro). There is no free plan on the pricing page. New accounts start on a 14-day trial, on Ghost’s billing help. Starter is $15 a month billed yearly, or $18 billed monthly, for up to 1,000 members, and it does not include paid subscriptions. Publisher, which does, is $29 a month billed yearly at 1,000 members, or $35 billed monthly. Whitelabel branding is marked yes on every plan, including Starter. We do not earn from Ghost.
Ghost is the smaller subscription once you need a paid plan at that list size, and it is the one that takes its logo off without a higher tier. beehiiv is the smaller bill while the letter stays free and the list stays inside 2,500 subscribers. A UK card issuer may add a conversion charge on a dollar subscription. This article does not turn these prices into pounds.
| When | Named in the article |
|---|---|
| The letter is free, and the list is under 2,500 people | beehiiv |
| You want paid subscriptions, and the whole list is still in the up-to-1,000 price this page could read | Ghost, on Publisher |
| The site and the emails have to carry your name, on the cheapest hosted plan | Ghost, on Starter |
| You need the automations named on a plan card, and nobody is paying you yet | beehiiv Lite |
| You will run the server yourself | Ghost, self-hosted. The install page does not print a server price |
| The product is a sales page and a course, and the letter is only the chase | A different stack. The Kit and Systeme.io comparison is linked below |
Both tools will send a newsletter and hold a website. The bill before anyone pays you is different. beehiiv publishes a free plan in US dollars. Ghost(Pro)’s pricing page, read the same day, also shows US dollars, and its trial is 14 days on the billing help, rather than a plan that stays free. A beehiiv subscriber, on beehiiv’s FAQ, is a unique email address subscribed to the publication. A Ghost member, on Ghost’s pricing page, is a free or paid account that can subscribe or log in. This article does not treat 1,000 of one as identical to 1,000 of the other. Checked 30 October 2026.
What public reviews say
These are third-party scores, read on 30 October 2026. They are other people’s reviews. Occono has not collected them, and they will move. This article uses the www.trustpilot.com profiles. Both of those profiles say the company has not invited customers recently, so the reviews may not be representative. G2 is not in the table. The Ghost and beehiiv review pages on G2 returned a captcha and did not return a rating.
| Source | beehiiv | Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| Capterra, read 30 October 2026 | 4.4 out of 5, 16 reviews, on Capterra UK. The filter on that page lists 10 at 5 stars, 3 at 4, 2 at 3 and 1 at 2. The page lists a starting price of US$49.00 a month, and it labels a free version and a free trial. Those are Capterra’s labels. The vendor page, below, is the source for the plan. US$49 matches the yearly Lite card. It does not match the $59 monthly figure in beehiiv’s offer data. | 4.7 out of 5, 53 reviews. The page says it was last updated on 15 October 2026. The filter lists 43 at 5 stars, 8 at 4, 1 at 3, 0 at 2 and 1 at 1. The sentiment block lists positive 96%, neutral 2% and negative 2%. Value for money is 4.5 from 37 reviews. Customer service is 4.3 from 39 reviews. The starting-price block on that page was empty. It says a free trial is available. This article does not take a Ghost price from Capterra. |
| Trustpilot, www.trustpilot.com, read 30 October 2026 | 3.9 out of 5, labelled Great, 413 reviews. On the page, 66% are five-star, 7% four-star, 1% three-star, 3% two-star and 23% one-star. 206 reviews are from the last 12 months. The profile says beehiiv replied to 95% of negative reviews, typically within 1 week. It also says beehiiv has a paid Trustpilot subscription, and that the company has not invited customers recently. The profile lists an address in New York. | 2.2 out of 5, labelled Poor, 18 reviews, on the ghost.org profile. On the page, 28% are five-star, 5% four-star, 6% three-star, 6% two-star and 55% one-star. 9 reviews are from the last 12 months. The profile says Ghost has not replied to negative reviews, and that the company has not invited customers recently. The profile is claimed, with a date of June 2026. The same page shows a separate card for www.ghost.co.uk at 3.6 from 268 reviews. This article does not use that card. One of the 18 ghost.org reviews, from Mr Jackson in Great Britain, is about a SIM card that never arrived. The 2.2 includes at least that review, which is not about the publishing software. |
| G2, read 30 October 2026 | No G2 score is listed here. The beehiiv reviews page returned a captcha. | No G2 score is listed here. The Ghost reviews page returned a captcha. |
Ghost’s 4.7 from 53 Capterra reviews and its 2.2 from 18 Trustpilot reviews are both on the public record. They are not the same kind of sample. Capterra’s page is software reviews, last updated on 15 October 2026, and 43 of the 53 are five stars. Trustpilot’s ghost.org page is 18 reviews, a 55% one-star share, and a profile that says Ghost has not replied to negative reviews. beehiiv’s Capterra score of 4.4 is from 16 reviews. Its Trustpilot score of 3.9 is from 413, with a 23% one-star share. Recent reviews on both products, quoted below, are about a clean editor, a bill that arrived after a trial, a UK publisher who left beehiiv because the emails were not arriving, and a beehiiv customer who says the free-plan limits shrank in October 2026.
“It is a clean, fast platform that makes writing, publishing, and managing a newsletter much simpler than more complicated website builders. I especially like that it combines blogging, email newsletters, memberships, and SEO tools in one place, without needing lots of plugins.”
Gabby W., founder in e-learning, Capterra, 9 April 2026. The same review gives overall 5.0, ease of use 5.0, features 4.0, customer service 5.0, and likelihood to recommend 10 out of 10. The cons on that review include fewer themes and plugins than WordPress, and that self-hosting can be more technical. Link to the Ghost page the review was read on. Checked 30 October 2026.
“I am still using ghost after 4 years. But by now I feel more like a hostage without the benefits of Stockholm Syndrom. Moving away would entail more hustle than I willing to invest.”
Dennis B., Capterra, 18 September 2024, on the same Ghost page. Overall rating 3.0. Ease of use 3.0. Spelling in the quote is the review’s.
“Do not trust this company. They offer a 14 day trial and what at first seems like a hold ends up being a bill. This is an illegal practice and I have a current claim against them for illegal charges.”
Sly Christy, in the US, Trustpilot, 11 October 2026. Link to the review. The 14 days are the length stated in the review. Ghost’s own billing help, below, also says 14 days, and it says you will not be billed when the trial expires. Those two lines were both public on 30 October 2026.
“The platform delivers on what it promises: a clean, fast, distraction-free editor focused purely on writing and publishing. The built-in tools for newsletters, memberships and subscriptions work smoothly, my site loads quick and overall it's a refreshing change that lets me spend way more time creating content than tinkering with the backend.”
Review titled “Support = Subpar”, Trustpilot, 19 January 2026. Link to the review. The same review says support responses feel dismissive, and that Ghost is a strong choice if you are comfortable with the docs and the forum.
“Overall, Beehiiv has helped me start a newsletter and get to grips with email marketing. It's fairly cost effective, especially for smaller subscription lists. I haven't found all the features available yet though, as it can be difficult and confusing to navigate the site.”
Genevieve, owner in UK education management, self-employed, Capterra UK, 29 October 2024. Link to the beehiiv page the review was read on. The review says the software was used for 1–5 months. The same review says you cannot see the newsletter while you make it, and that you format it and then preview.
“Overall, moving to beehiiv was a waste of time as we had to migrate to another platform after just a few months. It looked good initially, but ultimately we were better off with ConvertKit (now Kit).”
Alexander, owner in UK media production, self-employed, Capterra UK, 3 December 2024, on the same beehiiv page. The review says the software was used for 1–5 months. It also says: “Beehiiv has serious deliverability issues. We had to move off the platform as readers were no longer getting our emails. Their customer service was also quite poor, as they didn't respond when we reached out for help.” The same review says the interface is well designed and that access to advertisers made it easier to build a business on the platform.
“In early October beehiiv renamed and restructured its tiers — Launch/Scale/Max became Free/Lite/Pro — and the guest author allowance on the free plan dropped to one.”
Khila, Trustpilot, 8 October 2026. Link to the review. The same review says: “Lite is $49/month billed annually and still caps guest authors at three. Only Pro, at $95/month billed annually, restores what the free plan gave me in September.” Those dollar figures are the reviewer’s. The pricing page read on 30 October 2026 showed the same yearly card prices, and the plan-limits table showed one guest author on Free, three on Lite, and unlimited on Pro. The review says there was no email and no grace period. That notice is the reviewer’s account.
What you actually get
Checked 30 October 2026 on beehiiv’s pricing page and on Ghost’s pricing page, plus the help articles linked under the table. Where a vendor’s own pages disagree, the cell says so. Prices are US dollars, as those pages show them. Ghost’s cards print “USD / mo”. beehiiv’s offer data marks the currency as USD.
| beehiiv | Ghost(Pro) | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | $0. The visible card says free forever. The FAQ says no credit card, up to 2,500 subscribers, and unlimited email sends. The line above the cards says every plan includes a newsletter, a website, a podcast, a community and digital products. The FAQ answer says the same four products are on every plan, and that what changes is limits, support and advanced features. The Free card itself lists unlimited sends, deliverability, email templates, landing pages, the recommendation network, and API and integrations. The offer data for Free lists newsletters, a website, a podcast, custom domains, a link-in-bio and an AI website builder. It does not list a community or digital products. The Lite offer data then lists digital products and community under “Everything on Free +”. Read both on the day you start. | No free plan is listed on the pricing page. The header says “Get Started — free” and the cards say “Try for free”. Both point at Ghost’s signup. The billing help says every new Ghost(Pro) account starts on a 14-day trial, and that you need a plan to continue after it. Starter is the cheapest hosted plan, and it is not $0. Ghost also documents a self-hosted install. That path is below. It is not a free hosted plan. |
| Trial | The pricing FAQ says Lite and Pro include a free trial so you can use paid features before you subscribe. No credit card is needed to get started. The trial ends when you upgrade. That FAQ does not say how many days the trial lasts. A help article, updated 1 October 2026, says a new account can start a 14-day free trial of Pro plan features, with no credit card, and that some limits apply. The pricing page says Lite and Pro. The help article says Pro features, and it states 14 days. This article reports both. | 14 days, on the billing help: “All new Ghost(Pro) accounts start on a 14-day free trial. You will not be billed when your trial expires, but to continue using Ghost(Pro) after your trial you will need to select a plan.” The pricing page does not state a number of days. The same help page says Ghost does not offer refunds, and that a cancelled site is deleted at the end of the billing cycle. It says a card on file is used for the subscription. It does not say whether a card is required to open the trial, so this article does not. Sly Christy’s October 2026 review, above, says a 14-day trial became a bill. |
| Entry paid price | The visible cards, with “Pricing for 1,000 subscribers” on the page and yearly billing selected, showed Lite at $49 a month and Pro at $95 a month. The offer data on the same URL lists Lite at $59 and Pro at $109, per month, in USD. The FAQ says yearly billing saves up to 20% against paying month to month. $49 is about 17% under $59, and $95 is about 13% under $109. “Up to 20%” is the page’s own ceiling. It is not the gap at this 1,000-subscriber setting. Twelve times $49 is $588, and twelve times $59 is $708. Twelve times $95 is $1,140, and twelve times $109 is $1,308. Those yearly totals are this article’s arithmetic. The cards did not print them. Prices for other list sizes were not in the HTML this article could read. | Starter is bound to $15 a month when yearly billing is on, and $18 a month when monthly billing is on. The price file the page loads lists a yearly cost of 180 and a monthly cost of 18, both for 1,000 members. 180 divided by 12 is 15. The HTML fallback inside the Starter card, before that script runs, is 18 next to the words “Billed yearly”. This article uses $15 billed yearly and $18 billed monthly. Twelve times $15 is $180. Twelve times $18 is $216. Publisher, at 1,000 members, shows $29 a month billed yearly. The same file lists a monthly cost of 35 and a yearly cost of 348. 348 divided by 12 is 29. Twelve times $35 is $420. Business shows $199 a month billed yearly on the card. The file lists 239 a month, and a yearly cost of 2,388, from 1,000 members through 10,000 members. 2,388 divided by 12 is 199. |
| Subscribers, or members | Free, up to 2,500. Lite, up to 100,000. Pro, up to 250,000. Enterprise is custom. The FAQ says a subscriber is a unique email address subscribed to the publication. The help article says the count is the whole account, across every publication. Prices for list sizes other than the 1,000-subscriber cards were not in the HTML, so no other Lite or Pro dollar price is given here. | Starter, 1,000 members, and the price does not grow. Past 1,000, the page’s script disables Starter. Publisher’s card and the comparison table show 1,000 members at the default step. The price file then lists Publisher at 2,500 members for $55 a month, or a yearly cost of 552, which is $46 a month on the page’s own divide-by-12. The file continues in steps to 100,000. At the last slider step the script replaces the price with a line asking you to contact Ghost. The Business card lists “1,000 members”. The comparison table lists 10,000 registered members on Business. The script writes 10,000 into that cell when the matched price’s member limit is under 10,000. The file charges the same Business price from 1,000 through 10,000. |
| Sends | Unlimited on every plan, including Free. The FAQ says you are not charged extra for sending more often, or for emailing the whole list. | Unlimited on every plan, including Starter. The pricing page says: “All plans include unlimited email sends with no restrictions.” |
| Paid newsletter and the cut | The Lite card lists paid subscriptions and a 0% take rate. The Free card does not. The FAQ says beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription revenue and 0% of digital product revenue. You keep what you earn, minus the Stripe fee the page quotes: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. That is the figure on beehiiv’s page. It is not a UK card rate, and the page does not publish one. The offer data lists the 0% take rate on Lite’s additions. | Paid subscriptions are marked no on Starter and yes on Publisher, Business and Custom. Tips and donations are the same. Premium tiers: none on Starter, 3 on Publisher, 10 on Business. The transaction-fee row says you can process payments “without any additional transaction fees from Ghost. Payment processor fees still apply.” The row shows 0% on Publisher and above. Ghost’s pricing page does not print a Stripe percentage, so this article does not invent one. The payments line says Stripe. |
| Your name on the site and the emails | Removing beehiiv branding is marked no on Free and on Lite, and yes on Pro and Enterprise, in the plan-limits table. Pro is the $95 yearly card at 1,000 subscribers, or $109 in the offer data. The Free offer data names custom domains. The visible Free card does not. This article does not treat a free-plan custom domain as settled. | Whitelabel branding is marked yes on Starter, Publisher, Business and Custom. Ghost’s own line on that row: “With Ghost, your brand is front and center. Your logo. Your colors. Your publication.” A custom domain is marked yes on every plan. The page says every Ghost(Pro) site includes a ghost.io subdomain, any custom domain by a CNAME record, and a one-year free domain registration on the .link ending. It says that domain renews at standard rates after the first year. It does not print the renewal price. A custom sending domain, with DKIM and SPF, is marked no on Starter and yes on Publisher and above. The largest file on Starter is 5mb. Publisher is 100mb. |
| Website and themes | A website is on every plan, on the line above the cards and in the FAQ. The Free card lists landing pages. The comparison rows for pages, beyond the plan-limits block, were not expanded in the HTML this article could read, so no page count is stated here. | The Starter card lists “Your own website”, simple design settings, and an email newsletter. Custom themes and marketplace themes are marked no on Starter and yes on Publisher and above. Ghost’s line on that row says Starter has a built-in theme with layout and colour settings, and that higher plans can use a marketplace theme or one you build. |
| Automations and other tools | The Lite card lists automations, audience polls and A/B testing. The Free card does not. This article does not state a count of automations, because the comparison rows in the HTML it could read did not include one. The Lite card also lists ad monetisation as “Avg. $39/mo”. That is beehiiv’s label. The page text this article could read does not say whether that network is available in the UK, so this article does not. | Zapier, n8n, webhooks and the Admin API are marked no on Starter and yes on Publisher and above. Recommendations, the Ghost Explore directory, and ActivityPub distribution are marked yes on every plan, including Starter. Newsletters: 1 on Starter, 3 on Publisher, 10 on Business. The pricing page does not describe a visual email-sequence builder, so this article does not claim one. Staff users, on the card and in the comparison table: 1 on Starter, 3 on Publisher, 15 on Business. The price file loaded by the same page lists a staff limit of 2 on Publisher. The card and the table say 3. Those lines were both on ghost.org on 30 October 2026. |
| Support, as listed | The pricing FAQ does not state a response time. The plan-limits table this article could read covers seats, guest authors, publications and analytics history. It does not state a support tier in that block. The offer data lists human support on Lite and priority human support on Pro. Those are the offer labels, not times this article has measured. Alexander’s review, from a UK publisher, says support did not reply. Khila’s review says a limit changed without an email the reviewer saw. | Email support on Starter and on Publisher. Priority support on Business. An account manager on Custom. An uptime SLA of 99.9% is on Custom only. The January 2026 Trustpilot review says the editor is the reason to stay and support is the reason to hesitate. Ghost’s profile says it has not replied to negative reviews. Going over the member limit disables publishing until you upgrade, on the billing help. The content export in Settings, under Labs, includes content, tags, staff and settings. A full export, including images and themes, is a request to support@ghost.org before you cancel. |
beehiiv prices, the 1,000-subscriber cards, the plan-limits table, and the FAQ: beehiiv.com/pricing. Checked 30 October 2026. The visible yearly cards showed Lite at $49 a month and Pro at $95 a month. The offer data on that URL lists Free at $0, Lite at $59 and Pro at $109. Trial length: Plan types and subscriber plan tier pricing, updated 1 October 2026, which states a 14-day trial of Pro features and no card.
Ghost(Pro) cards, the comparison table, and the price file that page loads: ghost.org/pricing and ghost.org/js/pricing.min.js. Checked 30 October 2026. Trial, the no-refund line, the member-limit pause, and what an export contains: Manage your Ghost(Pro) subscription. Self-hosting: How to install Ghost. That page says the fastest start is Ghost(Pro), and that a self-hosted instance should be an Ubuntu server with at least 1GB of memory. It names DigitalOcean and Linode as install paths. It does not print a server price, so this article does not.
The offer
beehiiv. Free plan: $0, no card, up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends. Lite and Pro have a free trial with no card, on the pricing FAQ. The FAQ does not say how many days it lasts. The help article says 14 days of Pro features, and that the trial needs no card. With 1,000 subscribers and yearly billing selected, Lite showed $49 a month and Pro showed $95 a month. The offer data lists the monthly prices as $59 and $109. Enterprise is custom. The platform cut on paid subscriptions and on digital products is stated as 0%. The Stripe figure on the page is 2.9% + $0.30. The ad line says “Avg. $39/mo”. That is beehiiv’s label, not a sum this page has checked.
Ghost. No free hosted plan. A 14-day trial, on the billing help, and you are not billed when it expires. You then pick a plan if you want to continue. Starter is $15 a month billed yearly ($180 for the year, in the price file) or $18 billed monthly, for 1,000 members, without paid subscriptions. Publisher at 1,000 members is $29 a month billed yearly (a yearly cost of $348 in the file) or $35 billed monthly, with paid subscriptions, a 0% Ghost fee, custom themes and a custom sending domain. At 2,500 members the same file lists Publisher at $55 a month, or a yearly cost of $552, which is $46 a month. Business is $199 a month billed yearly, or $239 billed monthly, and that price in the file holds from 1,000 members through 10,000. Ghost does not offer refunds, on the billing help. The pricing page footer is copyright Ghost Foundation.
A worked example, Occono’s own arithmetic. It uses the dollar prices above. It ignores tax, any currency-conversion charge a UK card issuer adds, and the card processor’s fee. A free letter to a list that fits the free plan: beehiiv is $0. Ghost Starter is $180 for a year of yearly billing, or $216 if you pay $18 each month. That is the whole gap. beehiiv’s cap on that $0 plan is 2,500 subscribers. Ghost Starter stops at 1,000 members, and the next hosted step is Publisher.
A paid letter, with the whole list still inside the up-to-1,000 price. Ghost Publisher on yearly billing is $29 a month, which is $348 for the year in Ghost’s file. beehiiv Lite on the yearly card is $49 a month, and twelve times $49 is $588. The gap is $20 a month, which is $240 over twelve months. On monthly billing the offer prices are $35 and $59. The gap is $24 a month, which is $288 over twelve months. Twelve times $35 is $420. Twelve times $59 is $708. Ghost’s stated platform cut of the reader payments is 0% on Publisher. beehiiv’s stated platform cut is 0% on the Lite card and in the FAQ. beehiiv also prints Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30. Ghost says the processor’s fee still applies and does not print a rate. The $240 and the $288 are the subscription gap only. They are not a claim about which tool leaves you more after the card fee.
Taking the logo off is a different gap. Ghost marks whitelabel yes on Starter, at $15 a month billed yearly. beehiiv marks “Remove beehiiv branding” yes on Pro and on Enterprise. Pro is the $95 yearly card at 1,000 subscribers. Twelve times $95 is $1,140. $1,140 minus $180 is $960. Pro includes more than the logo. The comparison is the cheapest plan on each page that includes that vendor’s own branding line. Ghost’s line is on Starter. beehiiv’s line starts on Pro.
Which one fits you?
Genevieve’s October 2024 review is a UK education business that wanted a newsletter and found beehiiv cost-effective, and confusing. Alexander’s December 2024 review is a UK media business that left because the emails were not arriving. Gabby W.’s April 2026 review is a founder who wanted the site, the letter and the memberships in one login. Dennis B.’s September 2024 review is someone four years in who finds leaving a chore. Khila’s October 2026 review is a beehiiv customer who says the free plan’s guest-author limit dropped to one when the tiers were renamed. Those five are closer to a one-person publisher than a software-buyer average is.
A tutor, bookkeeper or shop sending one letter a month to people who already buy. You are not charging for the letter. beehiiv’s free plan covers the send up to 2,500 subscribers, with no card. Ghost Starter is $15 a month on yearly billing, stops at 1,000 members, and is the cheapest hosted Ghost plan. A local list will not hit 2,500 quickly. It also will not hit 1,000 quickly. The $180 a year is the price of sending that letter on Ghost(Pro) instead of on beehiiv’s free plan. Genevieve’s review is the UK case for beehiiv at this size, with the warning that the screens take time. Ghost is the better choice in this job when the letter has to live on a site that does not carry another company’s logo, and when $15 a month is an acceptable price for that. Whitelabel is on Starter. It is not on beehiiv Free or Lite. If the letter should also add the enquiry to a sheet you already keep, Make can connect the form to the sheet. That is a second product, and a second bill once you leave Make’s free plan. Ghost’s Zapier and n8n links are on Publisher, not on Starter.
A freelance writer charging for the letter. Ghost Publisher is the smaller subscription at the 1,000-member step: $29 a month billed yearly, against beehiiv Lite at $49 on the yearly card. Both state a 0% cut of the subscription once you are on that paid plan. You still pay the processor. beehiiv prints 2.9% + $0.30. Ghost does not print a rate. Ghost also gives you custom themes, a custom sending domain, and whitelabel on that Publisher plan. beehiiv’s free plan does not list paid subscriptions. They are on the Lite card. Gabby W.’s review is the case for Ghost once the publication is a site people can join, not only an email. If being found inside another company’s reading app is the point, the beehiiv and Substack comparison is that page. This one is the bill for the site and the letter. The $49 figure only holds while every subscriber, paying or not, is still inside the up-to-1,000 card. This article does not have a verified Lite price above that.
A coach who needs one follow-up sequence, not only a broadcast. beehiiv lists automations on the Lite card, which showed $49 a month on yearly billing at 1,000 subscribers, or $59 in the monthly offer data. The free plan’s card does not list them. Ghost’s pricing page marks Zapier, n8n and webhooks as Publisher features, and it does not describe a built-in sequence. This article does not claim Ghost sends the chase emails by itself. If the sequence is the job and there is no sale yet, Lite is the card that names automations, and it costs more than Publisher. If the sequence is attached to a sales page and a course, a newsletter tool is the wrong stack. The Kit and Systeme.io comparison is that page, and Systeme.io is the all-in-one this site uses for a page, email and a course. The beehiiv and Kit comparison is the page for two email tools, including a pound fee on a Kit sale. Those prices were not rechecked for this article.
Someone who already has a site, or who will run the server. Ghost’s install page says the fastest start is Ghost(Pro), and that a self-hosted copy should sit on Ubuntu with at least 1GB of memory. It does not print a hosting price. The pricing page says that if you self-host, you are the one who loses sleep when the servers catch fire. The software path is real. The $0 in that sentence is the Ghost(Pro) subscription you are not paying. It is not a full cost. Dennis B.’s review is the reason to export before you depend on either host: four years in, and leaving looks like more work than staying. Ghost’s billing help tells you to export before you cancel, and it says a full copy of images and themes is a request to support, sent before you cancel. The Labs export is the smaller file: content, tags, staff and settings. This article could not read a beehiiv export row in the plan-limits block, so it does not describe one. Khila’s review is the other move: a limit on the free plan changed in October, to one guest author, and the reviewer says the email never came. The plan-limits table read on 30 October 2026 shows that one guest author on Free. If the list is the asset, keep a copy that does not live inside the tool.
Where Ghost is the better buy
Ghost wins when you would rather pay a smaller hosted plan than assemble a site that still carries someone else’s name. Whitelabel is on Starter, at $15 a month billed yearly, or $18 billed monthly. Custom themes, paid subscriptions, a 0% Ghost fee, three staff users on the card, and a custom sending domain arrive on Publisher, at $29 a month billed yearly for 1,000 members. beehiiv’s plan-limits table holds the logo removal for Pro, at $95 a month on the yearly card at 1,000 subscribers. Gabby W.’s April 2026 review is the public case for that shape of product: a site, a letter, memberships and SEO in one place, without a pile of plugins. The January 2026 Trustpilot review says the same about the editor, and then says support is where it thins out. Capterra’s 4.7 from 53 reviews, last updated on 15 October 2026, is the kinder public score. Trustpilot’s 2.2 from 18 reviews is the one to read beside it, because a search for Ghost still lands there, the profile says Ghost has not replied to negative reviews, and at least one of the 18 reviews is not about the software.
Ghost is also the smaller subscription when readers are already paying and the list still fits the 1,000-member price. Publisher at $348 for a year of yearly billing sits under Lite at $588 on this article’s arithmetic from the $49 card. The platform cut on both of those paid plans is stated as 0%. You still pay Stripe or the processor. Ghost does not print that rate. beehiiv does, and the rate it prints is a US-style 2.9% + $0.30. Self-hosting is the further step, for someone who will keep an Ubuntu server. The install page recommends at least 1GB of memory and does not price the machine. Skyler R.’s November 2024 Capterra review is the limit on this praise: “With Ghost, you can really only have a fancy blog in my experience.” The review says they moved to WordPress to get the site exactly as they wanted. A shop that needs a catalogue is outside this page.
The reasons to hesitate are on Ghost’s own help page and on the same Trustpilot profile. There is no hosted plan that stays free. The trial is 14 days, and the help page says you are not billed when it expires and that you must pick a plan to continue. It also says Ghost does not offer refunds, and that a cancelled site is deleted at the end of the billing cycle. Sly Christy’s review, dated 11 October 2026, says the trial became a bill. Read the help page on the day you start, and read that review. The Publisher staff line does not agree with itself: the card and the table say 3, and the price file says 2. The Business card says 1,000 members, and the table says 10,000. The price file charges one Business price across that range.
Where beehiiv is the cheaper buy
beehiiv wins when the list is the job and the monthly plan is the thing you are trying to avoid. The free plan is a real account: 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, no card, and a recommendation network on the Free card. Ghost’s cheapest hosted plan is $15 a month billed yearly, capped at 1,000 members, and it does not include paid subscriptions. For a tutor’s monthly letter, that is $180 a year against $0, until the list outgrows 2,500. Genevieve, writing from UK education in October 2024, calls beehiiv fairly cost-effective for a smaller list, and hard to learn. The November 2025 Capterra review, the one beehiiv’s reply addresses as Inamari, says the editor feels built for creators and that design and automation still feel limited. beehiiv replied on 21 January 2026 and said automations had been updated.
Pay beehiiv when you also want the automations on the Lite card, the ad line, and the website, podcast, community and digital products the FAQ says are on every plan. The offer data lists digital products and the community on Lite’s additions, and it lists custom domains on Free. Those lines were both on beehiiv.com/pricing on 30 October 2026. Lite at $49 a month on yearly billing, for the 1,000-subscriber cards, is the first paid price this article could read. The monthly offer price is $59. You still pay Stripe at the rate beehiiv prints. Removing the beehiiv branding waits until Pro. The trial length is 14 days in the help article and unstated on the pricing FAQ. Capterra UK’s 4.4 from 16 reviews is a small count. Trustpilot’s 3.9 from 413 reviews is the larger public score, with a 23% one-star share, a reply rate the profile puts at 95% of negative reviews, typically within a week, and a warning that beehiiv has not invited customers recently. Alexander’s review is the deliverability warning from a UK publisher. Khila’s review is the October limit change. Recent one-star reviews on the same Trustpilot page include people who say they were emailed by newsletters they never joined. That sits inside the 23% one-star share.
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