Switching from Ghost to beehiiv: what happens to your fees

What actually changes when you switch

Most migration math turns on a revenue share — one platform takes a cut, the other doesn't. This move is different. Ghost and beehiiv both take 0% of your paid-subscription revenue, and both run payments through Stripe at the same 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. So every paid subscriber costs you the same $0.59 on a $10 plan either way, and neither platform touches the rest. The only thing that moves your bill is the flat monthly plan fee.

Take a newsletter at 1,000 subscribers with 60 paying $10/month — $600/month gross. On Ghost's Publisher (up to 1,000 members) plan that's $64.40/month all-in (10.73% of gross); on beehiiv's Scale plan it's $78.48/month (13.08%). At this size Ghost is $14.08/month cheaper — not because of any revenue cut, but because its entry Publisher (up to 1,000 members) plan costs $29/month against beehiiv's $43.08/month Scale fee. The full side-by-side is in beehiiv vs Ghost.

Where beehiiv pulls ahead

Ghost prices in member-count brackets, so its plan fee steps up as your list grows. beehiiv's Scale plan holds a single flat price across its whole range. That's what flips the answer as you approach the top of the verified band: at 2,500 subscribers with 150 paying $10/month ($1,500/month gross), Ghost has moved up to its Publisher (up to 2,500 members) plan at $46/month, while beehiiv's Scale fee is still $43.08/month. All-in, that's $134.50/month on Ghost versus $131.58/month on beehiiv — beehiiv is now $2.92/month cheaper.

So the honest answer is that it depends on where you sit in the range, and the swing is small either way because the variable costs are identical. Below roughly 1,000 members Ghost's cheaper entry plan wins; past that point Ghost's next bracket costs more than beehiiv's flat plan and the order reverses. Neither is a landslide — you're choosing between two 0%-take-rate platforms, which is a very different decision from leaving a revenue share behind. If you're weighing that bigger question, see flat fee or revenue share; for the plan ladders themselves, Ghost pricing explained and beehiiv pricing explained. Run your own list in the calculator to see which side of the line you're on.

The honest limit above 2,500 subscribers

One caveat on the numbers, and it's the important one: we've verified beehiiv's plan pricing directly only up to 2,500 subscribers, and beehiiv scales its plan price with list size beyond that. Every figure here stays inside that range on purpose — quoting a 10,000-subscriber beehiiv price would mean publishing a number we haven't confirmed, which this site doesn't do. Ghost, by contrast, is verified all the way to 100,000 members, so above the beehiiv ceiling only half the comparison is solid.

That matters for this particular switch, because Ghost's brackets keep climbing as your list grows while beehiiv's higher pricing is exactly what we can't yet see. If your list is well past 2,500, check beehiiv's current price for your real subscriber count before assuming the gap above holds — and once those higher brackets are captured, they'll flow into the calculator and these numbers automatically. The fee profiles behind all of this are on the Ghost and beehiiv profile pages, with sources on the methodology page.

What to verify before you move

Because the fee gap is small, the deciding factors are usually not the dollars. A few things to confirm directly with both platforms first, since they affect real money and real work: that your paid subscriptions transfer through Stripe without forcing subscribers to re-enter cards; how annual members are handled mid-term; and beehiiv's current import process for your posts, members, and any Ghost-specific setup like tiers or tips. We keep migration mechanics out of the data layer because they change often — verify against beehiiv's site and Ghost's docs at migration time.

It's also worth naming what the fee math doesn't price. Ghost is open source, so self-hosting is an option that takes its plan fee to $0 (you pay infrastructure instead) — a lever beehiiv doesn't have. beehiiv leans the other way, toward built-in growth and ad-network tooling. Those are real reasons to pick a side that a $2.92-a-month fee difference shouldn't override. If you're coming from a revenue-share platform instead, the steeper version of this move is switching Substack to beehiiv.

Frequently asked questions