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.

