#13 in CMS & PublishingUpdated 2026-08

Ghost

by Ghost · Publishing platform with built-in newsletters and paid memberships

51.1 — BenchRank score out of 100

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Pricing page

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Overview

Ghost is a publishing platform for building a website, writing posts in its editor and sending the same posts out as email newsletters. Readers sign up through native forms as free members or paid subscribers on monthly and yearly tiers, with membership and engagement analytics built in. Ghost(Pro) is the managed hosting service for the open source software.

Best for: Independent publishers and creators running a website, newsletter and paid memberships in one tool.
Pricing: Ghost(Pro) plans start at $15/month billed yearly for up to 1,000 members, then $29 and $199/month, plus a contact-sales Custom tier and a 14-day free trial.
Runs on: Self-hostedCLI

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

Website, newsletter and paid memberships in one product
0% transaction fees on paid subscriptions
Unlimited email sends on every plan
Open source, with published source code and install docs

Trade-offs

Starter has no paid subscriptions, custom themes or integrations
Quoted prices cover 1,000 members and rise with audience size
Member cap stays at 1,000 until the $199/mo Business plan
SSO and dedicated IP are Custom (contact-sales) only

Pricing

Published plans from Ghost’s own pricing page, in USD. Usage charges and add-ons may apply on top.

Ghost pricing tiers, monthly and annual rates in USD
Plan	Monthly	Annual (per month)	Includes
Starter	—per site	$15	1 staff user, 1,000 members Website, 1 newsletter, free custom domain Simple design settings, 5mb file uploads No paid subscriptions or custom themes
Publisher	—per site	$29	3 staff users, 1,000 members Paid subscriptions with 0% transaction fees Custom and marketplace themes, 8,000+ integrations Advanced native analytics, Admin API and webhooks
Business	—per site	$199	15 staff users, 10,000 members 10 newsletters, 10 premium tiers Priority support and higher usage limits Custom SSL and subdirectory install +$50/mo each
Custom	Contact sales	—	Unlimited staff users and members Dedicated IP and SSO 99.9% uptime SLA and account manager Invoice billing and advanced configurations

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 0 out of 100
API quality: 10 out of 100
Documentation: 80 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 85 out of 100
Pricing transparency: 85 out of 100
Changelog: 100 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 65 out of 100
Operational trust: 25 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 85 out of 100
Maintenance: 100 out of 100

This doesn’t look right — report a problem with Ghost’s score

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