Ghost 5.110 and the growing migration from Substack

I see creators hitting $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue and realizing they lose $1,300 to $1,500 every month to Substack. Substack takes a 10% platform cut plus Stripe fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 and a 0.7% recurring fee. If your readers pay through the iOS app, Apple adds a 15% to 30% fee that you cannot disable. In contrast, Ghost and Beehiiv charge a flat monthly fee and take 0% of your subscription revenue. If a creator reaches $10,000 in monthly subscription revenue, choosing Substack instead of Ghost results in a loss of roughly $12,000 every year because of the massive difference between percentage cuts and flat fees. At $500 in monthly revenue, Substack fees total roughly $65 to $75, while a Ghost Publisher plan at $29 plus $15 in Stripe fees costs $44. At $2,500 in monthly revenue, Substack fees reach $325 to $375, while Ghost costs $104. At $10,000 in monthly revenue, Substack takes $1,300 to $1,500, while Ghost Business costs $199 plus roughly $300 in Stripe fees, totaling $499. Patreon also takes a 10% fee for new creators as of August 2025. Substack also carries security risks, as a data breach in February 2026 exposed email addresses and phone numbers for 700,000 users. Substack currently hosts 5 million paid subscriptions globally.

Beehiiv and Ghost target different business models

Beehiiv acts as a growth engine for newsletter operators who want to scale through advertising and referrals. The Launch plan is free for up to 2,500 subscribers but lacks monetization tools. The Scale plan costs $49 per month for 1,000 subscribers and unlocks the Ad Network and the Boosts marketplace. Boosts allow you to get paid when other newsletters recommend your publication, and publishers earn an average of $2 per active subscriber. Beehiiv also provides a sponsorship network that matches your newsletter with advertisers. In its Ad Network, publishers earn based on CPM or CPC. The Max plan costs $109 per month and adds podcast support and a sponsorship storefront.

Ghost caters to publishers who want full editorial control. It is an open-source platform that allows for custom themes and multiple newsletters from one site. Ghost lacks the built-in growth infrastructure found in Beehiiv. It has no native recommendation network or sponsorship matchmaking. If you want to sell sponsorships on Ghost, you must build a Stripe payment link and create a media kit manually. The Publisher plan costs $29 monthly for 1,000 members and enables paid subscriptions. The Business plan costs $199 monthly for 10,000 members and provides priority support. Kit, formerly known as ConvertKit, rebranded in October 2024 and raised prices by 34% in October 2025. Kit is better for creators using newsletters as a lead magnet for courses.

The infrastructure and migration reality

Self-hosting Ghost on a $5 monthly VPS from Vultr allows me to avoid platform fees entirely. I can use a $2.50 monthly plan for an IPv6-only server if I have the technical skill to manage a Linux machine. DigitalOcean offers a $4 plan with 512 MB of RAM and 10 GB of SSD storage. Hetzner provides 4 GB of RAM and 20 TB of traffic for around $4 to $5 per month in Europe, though hardware costs rose for Hetzner in April and June 2026. Vultr spreads its presence across 32 data centers in 19 countries. For users who want zero server admin, Cloudways starts at $11 on DigitalOcean infrastructure or $14 on Vultr hardware. AWS Lightsail starts at $3.50, while Linode sits at $5.

Migrating from Substack to Ghost requires me to export a .ZIP archive of my posts and a .CSV for my subscribers. I use the Substack migrator in the Ghost dashboard to pull posts and stats. After I upload these files, I update my DNS settings through Cloudflare. I set up Mailgun for email delivery and a custom domain. Will the technical complexity of a self-hosted Ghost site deter most solo creators?