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Your shortlist	NewslettersGhost
General starting cost	From $216/yr
Billing and eligibility	View recorded plans (3) Published starting plan — $216.00/year paid upfrontSource · 2026-08-26 Published alternative — $348.00/year paid upfrontSource · 2026-08-26 Published alternative — $2,388.00/year paid upfrontSource · 2026-08-26
The verdict	A real site, a letter, and paid members with no platform cut, if you will pay Publisher to charge people.
Free tier	No free tier listed. A trial may be available.
Best for	A weekly host or writer-host who wants the website, the letter, and paid membership in one login.
Not the best fit	Someone who only needed a simple episode blast, or a sales team hunting ad attribution.
The gotcha	Starter cannot take paid memberships, so you pay Publisher if you want to charge people.
Public plans	Read public plan notes Self-hosted$0 software license (open source). You pay for your own server and email sending. Starter$18 USD/mo billed yearly on ghost.org/pricing opened 2026-08-26. 1,000 members. 1 staff. Site + newsletter. No paid subscriptions on the public card. Publisher$29 USD/mo billed yearly at 1,000 members. Paid subscriptions, custom themes, 3 staff. Price rises with the member slider. Business$199 USD/mo billed yearly at 1,000 members. 15 staff, priority support. Price rises with the member slider. CustomQuote. Unlimited staff and members.
Pricing notes	Official page yearly toggle showed $18 / $29 / $199 per month billed yearly on 2026-08-26. Monthly-billing dollars sit on a toggle and did not render as separate static figures, so we did not invent them. Publisher and Business scale with members. Slider dollars past 1,000 members were not captured as static text. Ghost takes 0%. Official help: Stripe processing is 2.9% + 30 cents. 14-day trial. July 2025 forum thread discussed a $15 Starter; live page today showed $18 billed yearly.
Category	Newsletters
Tool type	Newsletter platforms
Also listed in	Websites, Monetization
Revenue methods	Memberships and private feeds
Monetization requirements	Paid website and newsletter memberships are native. Podcast media hosting and protected RSS delivery need a suitable separate setup.
Price checked	2026-08-26
Next step	Visit Ghost