Switching from beehiiv to Ghost: what happens to your fees

Same cost per subscriber, so the plan fee is the whole story

Most platform moves change what each paying reader costs you. This one doesn't. beehiiv takes 0% of subscription revenue on its paid plans and Ghost takes 0%, and both leave you paying Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per payment. On a $10/month subscription that is $0.59 per paid subscriber on either platform. So the gap between the two bills is the gap between two plan fees, and once you charge, it stays the same however many of your readers pay.

That makes the move simple to price, with one limit stated up front. We have verified beehiiv's plan pricing directly only to 2,500 subscribers, as of 2026-09-29, so every comparison below stays at or under that size. Ghost is verified bracket by bracket far beyond it. The fee structures on their own are in beehiiv pricing explained and Ghost pricing explained, and the three-scenario side-by-side is on beehiiv vs Ghost.

A free beehiiv list pays to move

beehiiv's Launch plan costs $0 up to 2,500 subscribers. Ghost has no free plan. Its cheapest is Starter, at $15/month billed annually ($18 month to month), and it covers up to 1,000 members and cannot sell paid subscriptions. A list that charges nobody therefore costs $15/month on Ghost at 1,000 subscribers against $0 on beehiiv. Past 1,000 members Starter no longer fits, so at 2,500 the free list sits on Ghost's Publisher plan at $46/month, still against $0 on beehiiv.

Over a year that is $180 to $552 for a newsletter that earns nothing from subscriptions. On fees alone a free list has no reason to make this move. The reasons people do make it are things this site does not price: Ghost publishes your newsletter as a full website, and it is open source, so you can self-host it with no plan fee in exchange for running the servers yourself. If those matter to you, the plan fee is what you pay for them. If they don't, staying on Launch is the cheaper choice. The free-plan ceilings across every platform are compared in when a free tier actually ends.

Once you charge, Ghost is cheaper up to 1,000 members

beehiiv's Launch plan cannot sell paid subscriptions, so your first paying reader moves you to Scale at $43.08/month on its annual rate ($49 month to month), up from nothing. Ghost's Starter plan cannot sell them either, so on Ghost the same reader moves you to Publisher at $29/month, a $14 step. That is why the answer flips once you charge: Ghost is dearer for a free list and cheaper for a small paying one. At 1,000 subscribers with 50 paying $10/month ($500/month gross), beehiiv costs $72.58/month all-in on Scale (14.52% of gross) and Ghost costs $58.50 on Publisher (11.7%). The move saves $14.08/month, $168.96 a year.

That holds only up to 1,000 members, where Ghost's first paid bracket ends. One member later Ghost moves to its next bracket and the move costs $2.92/month more. The gap is the same at the top of the verified range. At 2,500 subscribers with 125 paying, beehiiv costs $116.83/month on Scale against $119.75 on Ghost's Publisher plan, so the move costs $2.92/month more. Because the per-subscriber cost is identical, adding paid readers does not change either figure. Ghost counts members, free and paid together, so a 1,000-member list that is still growing will cross that line whether or not anyone new pays. Price the move at the size you expect to reach, not the size you are now.

If you pay month to month rather than annually, the plan prices are $49 on beehiiv against $35 on Ghost at 1,000 members, and $49 against $55 at 2,500. On that basis the move saves $14/month at the smaller size and costs $6/month more at the larger one. The trade-off between paying yearly and monthly is in annual vs monthly billing, and your own numbers go in the calculator.

Where our numbers stop, and what to check first

Above 2,500 subscribers this comparison goes one-sided. Ghost's ladder is verified: one member past 2,500, its Publisher plan costs $63/month billed annually, and the full ladder is laid out in Ghost Starter vs Publisher vs Business. beehiiv has historically scaled its plan price with list size, and we have not confirmed its price above 2,500. Quoting one would mean publishing a number we have not verified, which this site does not do. If your list is larger, check beehiiv's current price for your real subscriber count and put both into the calculator.

Before you move, confirm the things that cost real money. Check whether existing paid subscriptions carry over through Stripe without readers re-entering their cards, and how annual subscribers are handled mid-term. Also check what happens to any ad-network or Boosts income you earn on beehiiv, which does not come with you. We keep migration mechanics out of the data layer because they change often. The reverse move is Ghost to beehiiv, and the same move toward a revenue share is beehiiv to Substack. The fee profiles behind every figure are on the beehiiv and Ghost profile pages, with sources on the methodology page.

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