Switching from Substack to Ghost: what happens to your fees

The before and after

Take a concrete newsletter: 5,000 subscribers, 250 of them paying $10/month — $2,500/month gross. On Substack that costs $415/month all-in (16.6% of gross). On Ghost's Publisher (up to 5,000 members) plan it costs $210.50/month (8.42%). That's $204.50/month — about $2,454/year — for the same revenue. The full side-by-side is in Ghost vs Substack.

Ghost is the structural opposite of Substack. Where Substack takes 10% of every subscription, Ghost takes 0% — you keep all of it and pay only a flat monthly plan fee plus Stripe's card processing. The more you earn, the more that 0% take rate is worth.

Why the savings grow with revenue

Substack's 10% scales with what you make, and on top of it you pay Stripe's card fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) plus its 0.7% recurring-billing fee — which is why the all-in rate lands near 16.6%. Ghost charges nothing on the revenue itself; your only variable cost is the same Stripe processing (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). Everything else is the fixed plan fee.

Because the plan fee is fixed and the take rate is zero, the gap widens as you grow. Push the same math to 25,000 subscribers with 1,000 paid at $10/month ($10,000/month gross) and it's $1,660/month on Substack versus $731/month on Ghost — $929/month, or about $11,148/year. The general version of this trade-off is in flat fee or revenue share.

The Ghost-specific catches

Ghost has no free tier, and its cheapest plan can't take payments: the Starter plan at $18/month doesn't support paid subscriptions, so to monetize you start on the Publisher tier — that's the plan priced into the numbers above. A flat fee is also a fixed cost you owe regardless of revenue, so it works against you at a small paid base. At a 5,000-subscriber list paying $10/month, the crossover sits around 59 paid subscribers — roughly $590/month gross. Below that, Substack is cheaper and migrating would cost you money; above it, Ghost's 0% take rate wins. Check your real numbers in the calculator if you're near the line.

The flip side is Ghost's open-source escape hatch: because Ghost is open source, you can self-host it for no platform fee at all and pay only your own infrastructure — an option no hosted-only platform offers, though it trades the bill for maintenance work. The full plan ladder and fine print are in Ghost pricing explained.

What to verify before you move

Confirm a few things directly with both platforms before committing: that your paid subscriptions can transfer through Stripe without forcing subscribers to re-enter cards (both use Stripe, which is what makes this possible); how annual subscribers are handled mid-term; and Ghost's current import process for your content and member list. Migration mechanics change often enough that we keep them out of our data layer — verify at migration time.

And count what isn't fees. Substack's network — recommendations, the app, Notes — drives free-subscriber growth Ghost doesn't try to replicate; Ghost trades that reach for ownership and a 0% take rate. A fee saving that costs you a growth channel can be a bad trade. Compare the fee profiles directly at Ghost and Substack, or see how leaving Substack toward a different model looks in switching to Kit.

Frequently asked questions