Ghost vs Substack in 2026: $4,800 or $1,056 a Year, and the 110-Subscriber Line

Key Takeaways:

Substack is free to publish on and keeps 10% of each subscription payment, plus Stripe's 2.9% and $0.30 per card payment and a 0.7% Stripe Billing fee, per its pricing help article (updated October 15, 2026)
Ghost takes 0% of revenue but charges a flat plan priced by how many members you have, free and paid together. Paid subscriptions start on the Publisher plan at $29 a month billed yearly for up to 1,000 members, per Ghost's pricing page
A newsletter with 10,000 readers and 500 paying $8 a month pays Substack $4,800 a year. Ghost's Publisher plan for 10,000 members costs $1,056 a year. Stripe charges the same on both
At a 10,000-member list, the two tie at 110 paid subscribers. Below that, Substack is cheaper. Above it, Ghost is, and the gap widens with every paid reader
The moving-day test: Ghost's own migration guide says Substack "will continue to take 10% fees" on paid subscriptions you bring over, and Substack says Apple does not transfer iPhone subscribers to another platform

A writer with a growing newsletter usually reaches this question the month their Substack fee passes their phone bill. "Should I move to Ghost?" Or, from someone starting out: "Why would I pay Ghost every month when Substack is free?" Both answers are right at different sizes. The two platforms charge for different things. Substack charges a share of what you earn. Ghost charges for how many people are on your list. We read the current pricing and help pages for both on October 15, 2026, priced the same newsletter on each, and found the line where they cross. We have reviewed Substack on its own in our Substack review and compared it with beehiiv in beehiiv vs Substack. This piece puts it next to the open-source option many writers consider once paid subscriptions start to add up.

Ghost vs Substack: The Terms Side by Side

Every row below comes from the companies' own pages, read on October 15, 2026. Prices are in US dollars, and Ghost figures are for its hosted service, Ghost(Pro).

Term	Substack	Ghost(Pro)
Cost to publish free posts	$0	Starter: $15/month billed yearly, $18 monthly, up to 1,000 members
Cost to sell subscriptions	10% of each payment	Publisher: from $29/month billed yearly ($35 monthly), priced by member count
Platform cut of revenue	10%	0%
Card processing	Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30 (US cards), plus 0.7% Billing	Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30, through your own account
Minimum price	$5/month, $30/year	Not listed
Custom domain	One-time $50	Included, plus a free first-year .link domain
iPhone in-app purchase	On by default, cannot be disabled while payments are connected	Not offered; Ghost calls Stripe its exclusive payments partner
List export	CSV of subscribers; names not available	CSV of all members with labels and subscription status

Ghost's Starter plan cannot take payments at all, according to its pricing table. Selling subscriptions on Ghost starts at the Publisher plan, which also adds custom themes, three staff users and up to three paid tiers.

How Much Does Each Cost on 10,000 Readers?

A newsletter with 10,000 readers and 500 paying $8 a month earns $48,000 a year. Substack keeps $4,800 of it. Ghost's Publisher plan for up to 10,000 members costs $1,056 a year billed yearly, or $1,260 billed monthly. Stripe's fees are about $3,528 a year on either platform, so Ghost leaves the writer about $3,744 more. Here is the full arithmetic for that one newsletter, assuming every paid reader is on the monthly plan and pays by US card on the web:

Line item (per year)	Substack	Ghost(Pro) Publisher, billed yearly
Gross subscription revenue	$48,000	$48,000
Platform fee	$4,800 (10%)	$1,056 (flat plan)
Stripe card fee (2.9% + $0.30)	$3,192	$3,192
Stripe Billing (0.7%)	$336	$336
What the writer keeps	$39,672	$43,416

Substack's help page lists the 0.7% Billing fee. Ghost's help page names only the 2.9% and 30 cents. Stripe's own Billing pricing page charges 0.7% of recurring Billing volume on its pay-as-you-go plan, and Ghost subscriptions run as recurring billing in your Stripe account, so we applied it to both. Check your own Stripe dashboard for the exact figure. Either way, Stripe's line is identical on both platforms, so the gap comes entirely from the platform fee.

Where Is the 110-Subscriber Line for Your List?

Substack and Ghost cost the same when 10% of your subscription revenue equals Ghost's plan price. At $8 a month and a list of up to 10,000 members, that happens at 110 paid subscribers, about 1.1% of the list. At 1,000 members the line is 37 paid readers; at 100,000 members it is 343. Ghost's price rises with the size of the list, free readers included. Its pricing page says you'll be notified to upgrade "based on the number of members you have." Substack's fee rises with revenue. So the question is how many of your readers pay.

The table behind the chart uses Ghost's yearly Publisher prices, which its pricing page loads for each member tier:

Members (up to)	Ghost Publisher per year	Paid readers at $8 where they tie	Share of the list
1,000	$348	37	3.7%
2,500	$552	58	2.3%
5,000	$756	79	1.6%
10,000	$1,056	110	1.1%
25,000	$1,692	177	0.7%
50,000	$2,496	260	0.5%
100,000	$3,288	343	0.3%

At Substack's $5 minimum, every line moves up by 60%: 176 paid readers at a 10,000-member list. The larger the list, the smaller the share of paying readers Ghost needs to come out ahead.

Who Pays Apple When a Reader Subscribes on an iPhone?

On Substack, the writer does. Substack's iOS in-app purchase is switched on for every publication with payments connected and cannot be turned off. Apple's 15 to 30% comes out of the writer's payout, and Substack's 10% is still calculated on the web price. Ghost has no in-app purchase step: readers pay through Stripe on the web. Substack's iOS payments article gives writers two choices: raise in-app prices to cover Apple's fee (Substack's recommended setting) or keep prices the same and accept a smaller payout. Apple pays Substack monthly, up to 45 days after the month ends, so January's in-app subscriptions reach you around mid-March. In the US, the app also links readers out to the web to pay. The upside is reach. The Substack app had about 551,000 ratings averaging 4.9 on the day we checked, and a reader who already has it open can subscribe in two taps. Ghost has nothing comparable for readers on their phones.

The Moving-Day Test: What Follows You Out?

Fees are only half of the comparison. The other half is what still applies to you after you leave. Ask each platform: if I moved tomorrow, what would come with me, and what would keep charging me?

On moving day	Leaving Substack	Leaving Ghost
Your list	CSV of emails; Substack says names cannot be exported	CSV of every member with labels and subscription status
Card subscribers	Move with the same Stripe account	Move with the same Stripe account
Fee on moved subscriptions	Ghost's guide: Substack "will continue to take 10% fees" on existing paid subscriptions	Ghost takes no cut
iPhone in-app subscribers	Apple "does not transfer billing relationships"; you keep emails and must re-invite them	Not applicable
Posts	Substack export zip, imported by Ghost's migrator	JSON export, plus media files on Ghost(Pro)

The third row is the one to read twice. Ghost's Substack migration guide says paid subscriptions move over through the same Stripe account, and that Substack keeps taking its 10% on them. Ghost offers its concierge team to help get those fees removed. That is Ghost's description of a competitor, so treat it as the cost to confirm in your Stripe dashboard before you move. Substack's own Ghost import guide runs the same Stripe handoff in the other direction. The fourth row cannot be fixed by anyone's concierge. Every reader who subscribed through Apple has to be asked to subscribe again. The more of your growth that comes through the Substack app, the larger that group gets. If you plan to move later, it helps to know how many paid readers are on Apple billing now. We collected the general version of this check in 5 tests before you migrate a membership.

When Does Substack Win?

Substack wins before you have paid readers and while you have only a few. It costs nothing until you earn, its recommendations and app put your posts in front of people who don't know you yet, and setup takes an afternoon. Below the paid-subscriber line for your list size, its 10% is cheaper than any Ghost plan that can take payments. A free newsletter costs $0 on Substack and at least $15 a month on Ghost. Substack's recommendations feature lets writers suggest each other's publications to new subscribers. Ghost has its own recommendations, an Explore directory and social web distribution on every plan, but no app with a built-in reading audience. Ghost wins on margin once you cross the line, on a fuller member export, on design control, and on ownership of the platform itself. Ghost's about page describes it as a non-profit whose constitution means the company "can never be bought or sold," and its open-source code can be self-hosted if you ever want to leave Ghost(Pro).

A 10% fee grows every time your readers do.

A business you own keeps the upside of its own growth. Built by Foundry builds products creators own, with the customer list and the revenue included.

See What We’d Build You →

If You Have 10,000 Readers and No Paid Tier Yet

Start on whichever platform you are already on and turn on paid subscriptions there. The first question is not which fee is lower. It is how many of your readers will pay at all, and you only learn that by asking them. Then compare the count with the line for your list size. If 300 of 10,000 readers pay $8, you are nearly three times past the tie, and Substack is costing about $1,824 a year more than Ghost's yearly plan. If 60 pay, stay where you are, keep growing, and check again each quarter.

Which Should You Choose: Ghost or Substack?

Choose Substack to start a newsletter for free, test whether readers will pay, and borrow its app and recommendations for growth. Choose Ghost once your paid readers clear the line for your list size, about 1.1% of a 10,000-member list at $8, and you want the margin, the fuller export and control of the site. Move before your iPhone subscriber count makes leaving expensive. On a $48,000 year, the money difference is about $3,744. The difference on moving day is whether the business comes with you whole.

What Neither Platform Sells

Both platforms sell the same product: more of your writing, delivered by email. Readers pay for the next issue, and the business depends on your writing it. Skip a month and paying readers start to wonder what they are paying for. The creators who keep customers longest sell something people use between issues: a plan, a tool, a daily practice built on what they teach. A newsletter is a strong way to earn trust and gather the list. It is a narrow thing to sell. Built by Foundry builds that kind of business with creators: a subscription product, usually an app people open every day, built in about three weeks for $0 upfront on a revenue share. The creator owns the business, the revenue and the customer list, and App Store search brings in people who have never read the newsletter. After launch, we keep running and improving it, because our share only works when the product keeps earning.

Your readers already pay monthly. Give them something they use daily.

If 500 readers will pay for your next issue, many more will pay for a product built around what you write about.

See What We’d Build You →

FAQ

How much does Substack take from paid subscriptions?

Substack keeps 10% of each subscription payment. Stripe separately charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per US card payment and a 0.7% Billing fee on recurring payments. Publishing free posts on Substack costs nothing, and a custom domain is a one-time $50.

Does Ghost take a percentage of revenue?

No. Ghost's help center says it charges 0% transaction fees and that the only payment fees are Stripe's own processing fees. Ghost earns from its plan price, which rises with the number of members on your list, free and paid.

Paid subscriptions need Ghost(Pro)'s Publisher plan or higher. Publisher costs $29 a month billed yearly ($35 monthly) for up to 1,000 members, $88 a month billed yearly for up to 10,000, and $274 a month billed yearly for up to 100,000. The Starter plan cannot take payments.

Can I move paid subscribers from Substack to Ghost?

Yes. Ghost's migrator imports free and paid subscribers, and paid subscriptions move when you connect the same Stripe account Substack used. Ghost's guide says Substack will continue to take its 10% on those existing subscriptions unless the fees are removed. Readers who subscribed through Apple in the Substack iOS app cannot be transferred.

Is Ghost cheaper than Substack?

Once enough readers pay, yes. At $8 a month, Ghost's yearly Publisher plan costs less than Substack's 10% above 37 paid readers on a 1,000-member list, 110 on a 10,000-member list and 343 on a 100,000-member list. Below those counts, Substack is cheaper.

Ghost vs Substack in 2026: $4,800 or $1,056 a Year, and the 110-Subscriber Line

Get Creator Revenue Insights

Ghost vs Substack: The Terms Side by Side

How Much Does Each Cost on 10,000 Readers?

Where Is the 110-Subscriber Line for Your List?

Who Pays Apple When a Reader Subscribes on an iPhone?

The Moving-Day Test: What Follows You Out?

When Does Substack Win?

If You Have 10,000 Readers and No Paid Tier Yet

Which Should You Choose: Ghost or Substack?

What Neither Platform Sells

FAQ

How much does Substack take from paid subscriptions?

Does Ghost take a percentage of revenue?

Can I move paid subscribers from Substack to Ghost?

Is Ghost cheaper than Substack?

Creators who already did this

Ellie Fausett

Samantha Mae

Liv Merima

Curious what your app could be?

Keep reading

Ghost vs Substack in 2026: $4,800 or $1,056 a Year, and the 110-Subscriber Line

Get Creator Revenue Insights

Ghost vs Substack: The Terms Side by Side

How Much Does Each Cost on 10,000 Readers?

Where Is the 110-Subscriber Line for Your List?

Who Pays Apple When a Reader Subscribes on an iPhone?

The Moving-Day Test: What Follows You Out?

When Does Substack Win?

If You Have 10,000 Readers and No Paid Tier Yet

Which Should You Choose: Ghost or Substack?

What Neither Platform Sells

FAQ

How much does Substack take from paid subscriptions?

Does Ghost take a percentage of revenue?

How much does Ghost cost for a paid newsletter in 2026?

Can I move paid subscribers from Substack to Ghost?

Is Ghost cheaper than Substack?

Creators who already did this

Ellie Fausett

Samantha Mae

Liv Merima

Curious what your app could be?

Keep reading