Updated October 15, 2026
MailCheap
Ghost

MailCheap vs Ghost

A lean open-source sender vs an open-source publishing platform

11
Features Compared
4
Key Differences
5
FAQs Answered
TL;DR

Ghost is a full publishing platform: themes, a CMS, member tiers and paid memberships with 0% platform fees, from $29/month on Ghost(Pro) Publisher and $88/month at 10,000 members (yearly). MailCheap only does newsletters, with a lighter issue site and no paid tiers, for $39/month for a weekly issue to 10,000 readers. Both are open source and self-hostable.

Platform Overview

See how each platform looks

MailCheap

MailCheap dashboard screenshot

Open-source newsletter app by Marc Lou, priced by emails sent: self-host it on Amazon SES or use the hosted cloud.

Ghost

Ghost dashboard screenshot

Open-source publishing platform with newsletters, memberships, SEO, and managed or self-hosted deployment options.

Key Differences

The main things that set these tools apart

Newsletter or publication
Ghost wins

Ghost is a website first: themes, tags, pages, SEO settings, comments and member tiers, with newsletters as one way to deliver posts. MailCheap is a sender first, with a simple public page per issue.

Cost at scale
MailCheap wins

Ghost(Pro) bills by members, free and paid. MailCheap bills by emails sent and ignores dormant readers. At 10,000 readers that is $88/month (yearly) on Ghost against $39 on MailCheap for a weekly issue.

Paid memberships
Ghost wins

Ghost Publisher and up take payments through Stripe with 0% platform fees. MailCheap has no paid tiers.

Self-hosting effort
Ghost wins

Self-hosted Ghost needs a server with MySQL and a Mailgun account for newsletters. Self-hosted MailCheap needs MongoDB, Upstash QStash and Amazon SES production access, and the repository says self-hosters get no support. Ghost has a decade of self-hosting documentation.

Pricing Comparison

At 10,000 subscribers

MailCheap
$39/month

Growth plan, 75,000 emails/mo for a weekly issue.

Visit MailCheap
Ghost
$88/month

Ghost(Pro) Publisher at 10,000 members, yearly billing. About $105 billed monthly.

Visit Ghost
Best for SaaS
Sequenzy
$49/month

At 10,000 subscribers

60,000 emails/mo (~6 per contact), unlimited contacts.

Free plan: up to 2,500 emails/month. Paid plans from $19/month (15,000 emails), unlimited contacts on every plan. See all plans

Start for free

Feature Comparison

11 features compared side-by-side

Feature
MailCheap
Ghost
Sequenzy
Pricing and hosting
Pricing model
Emails sent
Members (free and paid)
Per email sent
Free option
Self-host
Self-host
Free plan
Self-hosted stack
Next.js, MongoDB, Upstash QStash, Amazon SES
Node.js, MySQL, Mailgun for newsletters
License
AGPL-3.0
MIT
Publishing and monetization
Website
Issue pages, author page, sitemap
Full CMS with themes
Landing pages, no issue archive
Paid memberships
Publisher and up, 0% platform fee
Multiple newsletters
Up to 3 per account
3 on Publisher, 10 on Business
Multiple lists
Sending
Email sends
By plan (75,000 on Growth)
Unlimited on Ghost(Pro)
Monthly allowance by plan
Deliverability guardrails
Warm-up, bounce and complaint pauses, list cleanup
Managed on Ghost(Pro), yours when self-hosted
Managed, with domain checks
Automations
One welcome email
Basic member emails
Visual builder and sequences
MCP server
Official, hosted, full read and write
Beta, through the ghst CLI
Official remote MCP

API, CLI and MCP: How AI-Ready Is Each Tool?

What you, or an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT, can do in each tool without opening the dashboard. “MCP” means the vendor's own MCP server can do it. Each status links to the doc that confirms it.

MailCheap
MCP server
Official, read and writeHosted

mailcheap.ai/mcp. OAuth for ChatGPT, Claude and Grok, API key for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Every API endpoint is also a tool; sends are marked irreversible so agents ask first.

MCP docs
CLINoneAPIREST
Through its MCP (6 of 14)

Create and update contacts, Create campaigns, Send or schedule campaigns, Read campaign analytics, View or manage unsubscribes, Set up sending domains

Checked October 15, 2026
Ghost
MCP server
Official, read and writeRuns locally

Built into Ghost's ghst CLI (beta, pre-1.0): ghst mcp stdio/http. Posts, members, stats, raw Admin API. No hosted server.

MCP docs
CLIOfficialAPIREST (Admin API + Content API)
Through its MCP (8 of 14)

Create and update contacts, Add contacts to lists or tags, Create campaigns, Send or schedule campaigns, Create and edit templates, Read campaign analytics, View or manage unsubscribes, Create forms or landing pages

Checked September 28, 2026
Sequenzy
MCP server
Official, read and writeHosted or local

250+ tools. Hosted with OAuth or local with an API key.

MCP docs
CLIOfficialAPIREST
Through its MCP (14 of 14)

Create and update contacts, Add contacts to lists or tags, Create segments, Create campaigns, Send or schedule campaigns, Build automations, Trigger automations, Create A/B tests, Create and edit templates, Send transactional email, Read campaign analytics, View or manage unsubscribes, Set up sending domains, Create forms or landing pages

Checked September 28, 2026

If You Leave Later: What You Can Take With You

Switching is easier when your data comes with you. Unsubscribes matter most: without them, people who opted out get emailed again.

MailCheap
Contacts and custom fields
Yes

GET /api/v1/contacts/export returns a one-hour CSV link, filterable by newsletter and status

MailCheap docs
Unsubscribes and bounces
Yes

Contacts export with status=unsubscribed

MailCheap docs
Templates as HTML
Yes

GET /campaigns/{id} returns each issue's content

MailCheap docs
Automations
Not confirmed

No automations to export beyond the welcome email

Open and click history
Not confirmed

Per-campaign reports via API; per-subscriber event history not documented

Ghost
Contacts and custom fields
Yes

Members > settings icon > Export all members (CSV: email, name, note, subscribed_to_emails, labels, Stripe ID)

Ghost docs
Unsubscribes and bounces
Yes

Filter members by newsletter subscription or email disabled, then ... > Export

Ghost docs
Templates as HTML
Not confirmed

No email template library; content exports as JSON via Settings > Advanced > Import/Export

Ghost docs
Automations
Not confirmed

Automations are beta (welcome flows); no export or API documented.

Open and click history
Not confirmed

Per-member open rate and activity shown in UI and filterable; not listed in member CSV fields

Sequenzy
Contacts and custom fields
Yes

Subscribers > Export downloads a CSV with status, tags and custom attributes, or page through GET /subscribers

Sequenzy docs
Unsubscribes and bounces
Yes

Unsubscribed and bounced contacts carry their status in the CSV export, and GET /suppressions lists them

Sequenzy docs
Templates as HTML
Yes

GET /templates/{id}/render returns the exact email-safe HTML that is sent

Sequenzy docs
Automations
Yes

GET /sequences/{id} returns each sequence's steps, delays and conditions as JSON; other tools cannot import it directly

Sequenzy docs
Open and click history
Yes, on request

Full per-contact open and click history is exported on request; opens and clicks also stream out through webhooks as they happen

Pros & Cons

Honest strengths and weaknesses of each platform

MailCheap

Pros
  • Priced by emails sent, dormant readers excluded
  • About $39/month for a weekly issue to 10,000 readers
  • Strict automatic deliverability protection
  • Hosted MCP server that can schedule and send
  • No badge on any plan
Cons
  • No paid memberships
  • Website is an issue archive, not a CMS
  • Self-hosters get no support
  • New project with little track record

Ghost

Pros
  • Full open-source CMS with themes
  • Paid memberships with 0% platform fee
  • Unlimited sends on Ghost(Pro)
  • Mature self-hosting community
  • MIT license
Cons
  • Priced by members, free and paid
  • Self-hosted newsletters need Mailgun
  • Basic email automation
  • MCP is a beta CLI feature

What Users Say

Reviews from Trustpilot, linked to the source

Ghost Reviews

Trustpilot

“It is a great site and the interface is very easy to use. I think it is ideal for anyone who wants to take control over their voice online. The customer service responses are unbelievably quick.”

Trustpilot

“Something very odd here. Not part of all. Lower quarter of screen showing wide screen photos??? First one. Picture very like my room but it's differently set up. The window in wrong place, small cabinet wrong place. Then a beautiful hill landscape I have never seen appears. Is this part of app”

Best For

When to choose each tool

Choose MailCheap if you...
  • Newsletters that do not need a full website
  • Large free lists where member pricing hurts
  • Agent-driven drafting and scheduling
Choose Ghost if you...
  • Independent publications with paid memberships
  • Writers who want a full site, themes and SEO controls
  • Self-hosters who want a mature project
Choose Sequenzy if you...
  • Newsletters that need automations and segments
  • Product companies that send updates and lifecycle email
Start for free

When Sequenzy fits better than either

Automations beyond the welcome email

Ghost and MailCheap both send welcome emails and newsletters. Sequenzy adds visual automations, sequences, segments and A/B tests.

No servers to run

Sequenzy is hosted, bills by emails sent like MailCheap, and has a free plan, so you get open-source-level pricing without maintaining MongoDB, MySQL or mail providers.

Product email included

For software companies, Sequenzy also sends transactional and billing-triggered email from Stripe, Paddle or Polar.

Overview

Ghost and MailCheap are the two open-source options most writers will meet when they leave beehiiv or Substack. They look similar from a distance: hosted plans, a self-hosted route, and a public website for your newsletter. Up close they are different products. Ghost is a publishing platform that happens to send email. MailCheap is an email sender that happens to publish issues on the web.

What you get on the web

Ghost gives you a full site: themes, navigation, tags, static pages, SEO settings, comments and member signups with tiers. Many independent publications run their entire business on it.

MailCheap gives each newsletter a site at your-newsletter.mailcheap.ai (or an archive path when self-hosted) with a page per issue, an author page, a signup form, share images and a sitemap. It is enough for issues to be found in search, but you will not build a magazine on it.

Cost: members or emails

Ghost(Pro) bills by members, counting free readers too. Publisher is $29/month at 1,000 members and $88/month at 10,000 (yearly billing, about $105 monthly), with unlimited sends. MailCheap bills by emails sent:

Readers MailCheap (weekly issue) Ghost(Pro) Publisher (yearly)
1,000 $19 $29
5,000 $39 $63
10,000 $39 $88
25,000 $79 $141

Ghost's price includes the CMS and paid memberships. If you would use those, the gap is smaller than it looks.

Self-hosting side by side

Self-hosted Ghost runs on Node.js with MySQL, and newsletter sending goes through Mailgun. The project has years of install guides, one-click images and community answers.

Self-hosted MailCheap is a Next.js app that needs MongoDB, Upstash QStash for background sends and Amazon SES (or the invite-only PostShiba) with production access. It ships with sending switched off until you set SENDING_ENABLED=true, and the README states that issues are disabled and self-hosters get no support. Setup takes about an hour, most of it waiting on DNS and SES approval. Its SES costs, about $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails, are the cheapest sending you will find.

Decision checklist

  • Choose Ghost if the website and paid memberships matter as much as the email.
  • Choose MailCheap if you want the cheapest reliable sender and the website is a bonus.
  • Choose Sequenzy for hosted per-email pricing with automations and segments. See also MailCheap alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

5 questions answered about MailCheap vs Ghost

Testimonials

Sequenzy Testimonials

Yusuke

Yusuke

Founder, LandingBoost

It’s the first tool where I’m actually willing to keep working on email without it turning into one giant scary blast. Favorite part is still what I said, being able to split stuff. Drafts vs campaigns vs a single-person send. I can park a lot of “don’t send this yet” work with labels and not feel like it’s one click away from going to everyone. Sequences later. Consent / lists first. I’m slow on purpose.

Rakesh Reddy

Rakesh Reddy

Founder, CrawlRaven

We used Sequenzy to replace a generic onboarding flow with coordinated lifecycle journeys covering signup, connecting Google Search Console, discovering SEO opportunities, upgrading, and paid-customer retention. Event triggers, conditional branches, personalization, and enrollment cancellation gave us precise control over who receives each message - and when someone should exit a journey. We backfilled eligible users into the appropriate journeys. The initial emails went out without bounces, complaints, suppressions, or unexpected recipients. Future users now enter the relevant journeys automatically based on their activity in CrawlRaven.

Elvis Sun

Elvis Sun

Founder, PressPulse & Medialyst

Codex basically one-shotted the migration for syncing our audience from SendGrid to Sequenzy. Sequenzy is fully observable, so agents can just set everything up. The net impact is saving $45/mo, plus 2 hours of my time every time I need to repurpose a newsletter. That's 8 hours a month. My consulting rate is $550/hr, so every hour automated is super valuable.

Caden Sumner

Caden Sumner

Solo founder, Moxie Docs

Lifecycle email was the kind of thing I knew I would need eventually, but have never had to build it out myself and had no idea where to start. In literal hours I had a fully working (but basic) flow for onboarding new users, detecting churn, and re-engaging people who have trials lapsing to hopefully convert. Sequenzy let me offload the entire “keep users engaged and recover the ones who are slipping” workflow to something that just runs. Every hour I'd have spent building and babysitting lifecycle emails went into shipping the actual product instead.

The Stand Comedy Club

The Stand Comedy Club

Edinburgh, Glasgow & Newcastle

I'd been looking for an alternative transactional and marketing email platform for some time, and I'm really glad I came across Sequenzy. The system is easy to configure and use, the email builder is excellent, and the API integration and documentation are first class. Best of all, the support is exceptional. Nic is always available, responds quickly, and is genuinely keen to improve the platform. We've had numerous feature requests implemented incredibly quickly, and any issues we've encountered have been resolved almost immediately. The AI integration is also genuinely useful, rather than feeling like it's been added simply for the sake of having AI. We've already seen improved open and click rates compared with our other providers, and the platform offers excellent value for money. Highly recommended - definitely worth trying. Anything I had disliked about the system has already been addressed. We had improvements made to the email builder and we had team/user access controls expanded just by asking. The turn around time for making these changes has been very impressive.

Oct 7, 2026

G2
Jim

Jim

Founder

I run a SaaS, and found Nic on X where I kept seeing posts about his email marketing tool, Sequenzy. I decided to try it for email marketing. Literally on the first day, I used it to send a marketing campaign and I got 5 sales. What I like most is the ai assistant because it actually writes emails that feel real instead of the usual ai slop chatgpt returns, so they do not end up in spam. It also has a 2.5k free email limit which is way better than most tools that only give you around 1k. The best part though is that it handles everything for me, tags, subscribers, sequences and all of it. Without it i would probably be managing a database and a bunch of cron jobs just to make email automation work. Sequenzy just makes my life a lot easier. it can also be set up with 2-3 clicks! Give it a try!!

Mar 10, 2026

Dhiva Logu

Dhiva Logu

Founder

I love everything about Sequenzy and also the kind of support I get from Nic. It's already the best choice for campaigns & Sequences. Specially the integrations with payment providers, auth providers & analytics etc.. is really spot on. Best in terms of features & pricing in the email segment 100% recommend it for SaaS emails :)

Mar 10, 2026

Petros

Petros

Shopify App Store review

The setup was fast and simple. It synced customer, product, and order data quickly. Generating automated flows was simple, and it improved my monthly bottom line by about 7%.

Filip Panoski

Filip Panoski

Founder, Bazzly

I've used 2 other email marketing tools. They were supposedly "market leaders". Both were clunky, unnecessarily expensive and horrible support. When I tried Sequenzy I thought there'd be trade-offs compared to the others. But there weren't, it had everything I needed, there was no bloat, emails delivered extremely fast, and the founders shipped anything I asked in a day. The best part is that Sequenzy is AI native, I rarely do stuff in the dashboard, just use my AI to create campaigns, sequences and segment customers which saves me a ton of time. Never been happier with an email marketing tool.

Max Eccles

Max Eccles

Founder, InstantInterior AI

$600 revenue in 30d from email automations. Very happy I migrated to Sequenzy. Before I was making zero from email automations.

Leo

Leo

Maintainer, Email SDK

Sequenzy's most powerful feature is probably those campaigns. It seems useless at first but they are one of the most important things to send to your users. I get to talk to my users 1:1 and help them set it up for their use case. The owner is really active on X, really nice and helpful. He's the type of person to go out of his way to help you, so you get really good support!

Viraj

Viraj

Founder, SnapCount

After using Loops and Resend, I was looking for an email infrastructure service that had MCP support, Affonso and Dodo Payments integrations, and was affordable. Came across Sequenzy, and the support from Nic has been unbelievable. Migration was done in 24 hours without any issues, and I can run all of my products from a single account.

Louis

Louis

Founder

Easy migration from another tool. Premium customer service and easy to set everything up

Apr 9, 2026

Jim

Jim

Founder, FixMyLanding

It helped me grow to $100 MRR, get #1 on Uneed, make more sales, get acquired. I literally love Sequenzy, it's so simple, I love the dashboard. I also saw the integrations and was shocked. 3 sales today, all thanks to Sequenzy. Honestly, thanks.

King Killers

King Killers

Shopify App Store review

Loving the Sequenzy app so far due to the affordability and large subscriber limits. Planning on this becoming my main email app. Campaign + flows setup with the help of their AI took less than 30 minutes.

Verified User

Verified User

Computer Software

SaaS-focused feedback, fast processing, and plenty of integrations. It is very SaaS-focused, supports a wide range of integrations, and processes feedback right away.

Jun 17, 2026

G2

Not sure which to pick?

If you're a SaaS founder who needs Stripe integration and unified email, try Sequenzy free. No credit card required.

Related Comparisons

Written by Sequenzy, which appears in this comparison. How we compare tools

Sequenzy pricing reference

Sequenzy - Complete Pricing Guide

Pricing Model

Sequenzy uses email-volume-based pricing. You only pay for emails you send. Unlimited contacts on all plans — storing subscribers is always free.

All Pricing Tiers

  • 2.5k emails/month: Free (Free annually)
  • 15k emails/month: $19/month ($205/year annually)
  • 30k emails/month: $29/month ($313/year annually)
  • 60k emails/month: $49/month ($529/year annually)
  • 120k emails/month: $99/month ($1069/year annually)
  • 300k emails/month: $199/month ($2149/year annually)
  • 600k emails/month: $399/month ($4309/year annually)
  • 900k emails/month: $599/month ($6469/year annually)
  • 1.2M emails/month: $799/month ($8629/year annually)
  • 2M emails/month: $1299/month ($14029/year annually)
  • 3M emails/month: $1999/month ($21589/year annually)
  • 4M emails/month: $2499/month ($26989/year annually)
  • 5M emails/month: $2999/month ($32389/year annually)
  • Unlimited emails/month: Custom pricing (Custom annually)

Yearly billing: All plans offer a 10% discount when billed annually.

Free Plan Features (2,500 emails/month)

  • Visual automation builder
  • Transactional email API
  • Team and agent inbox
  • Landing pages
  • Unlimited team members
  • Goal tracking & revenue attribution
  • Unlimited lists and segments
  • Payment integrations
  • API, MCP, and CLI access
  • Unlimited sending domains
  • SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
  • Deliverability monitoring
  • Send time optimization
  • A/B testing

Paid Plan Features (15k - 5M emails/month)

  • Visual automation builder
  • Transactional email API
  • Team and agent inbox
  • Landing pages (Create hosted signup pages and attach a custom domain.)
  • Unlimited team members
  • Goal tracking & revenue attribution
  • Unlimited lists and segments
  • Payment integrations (Stripe, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy)
  • API, MCP, and CLI access
  • Unlimited sending domains
  • SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
  • Deliverability monitoring
  • Send time optimization
  • A/B testing

Enterprise Plan Features (Unlimited emails)

  • Visual automation builder
  • Transactional email API
  • Team and agent inbox
  • Landing pages
  • Unlimited team members
  • Goal tracking & revenue attribution
  • Unlimited lists and segments
  • Payment integrations
  • API, MCP, and CLI access
  • Unlimited sending domains
  • SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
  • Deliverability monitoring
  • Send time optimization
  • A/B testing

Important Pricing Notes

  • You only pay for emails you send — unlimited contacts on all plans
  • No hidden fees - all features included in the price
  • No credit card required for free tier

Contact

  • Pricing Page: https://sequenzy.com/pricing
  • Sales: hello@sequenzy.com