Luxe Themes
Ghost vs Kit: Why Creators Are Leaving ConvertKit
Kit raised prices 35% and still has no website or SEO. Ghost gives you newsletters, memberships, a full CMS, and 0% revenue share for $29/mo.
Kit’s Price Increase Changed the Math
In September 2025, Kit (formerly ConvertKit) raised prices by up to 35%. The Creator plan jumped from $29/month to $39/month for just 1,000 subscribers. Some users reported paying up to 4x more than their previous rate.
At $39/month for 1,000 subscribers, Kit is an email marketing tool that doesn’t include a website, doesn’t include a blog, doesn’t include SEO tools, and charges a 0.6% fee on products sold through Kit Commerce — on top of Stripe’s processing fees.
Ghost Publisher costs $29/month (billed annually) and includes a complete website, blog, email newsletters, paid memberships with 0% platform fee, built-in SEO, and a free custom domain.
The comparison is no longer close.
What Kit Does and Doesn’t Do
Kit is an email-first platform. It’s genuinely good at what it does: sending emails, managing tags, and building automation sequences. The visual automation builder is one of the best in the industry.
But Kit doesn’t do several things that matter to creators building a real publishing business:
No website or blog. Kit has “creator profiles” that function more like a link-in-bio page than a publication. If you want a real website with articles, pages, and navigation, you need a separate platform — WordPress, Squarespace, or something else — plus the work of connecting everything together.
No SEO. Posts published via Kit are technically live on the web, but they have no sitemaps, no canonical tags, no meta title customization, and no structured data. They don’t rank in search engines. For creators who want organic discovery alongside their newsletter, this is a significant gap.
No design control. Kit templates can’t be restructured. There’s no HTML editing, no custom layouts, and no drag-and-drop design builder. You can change images and text within existing templates, but the structure is fixed.
90-day analytics limit. Historical email data older than 90 days is unavailable on standard plans. Long-term trend analysis is impossible without exporting data manually.
No third-party integrations on the free plan. The free Newsletter plan (up to 10,000 subscribers, which is generous) blocks all third-party integrations.
Ghost: The Full Platform Kit Users Are Missing
Ghost combines everything Kit does for email with everything Kit doesn’t do for publishing:
- Full CMS and blog with custom domains, themes, and SEO
- Email newsletters with segmentation, multiple newsletters per site, and unlimited sends
- Paid memberships with direct Stripe integration and 0% platform fee
- Built-in SEO — sitemaps, canonical URLs, structured data, Open Graph tags
- Custom themes with complete design control over your publication
- Open source under the MIT license — self-hostable for near-zero cost
The key difference: Ghost is a publishing platform with email built in. Kit is an email tool with no publishing built in.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Ghost | Kit (formerly ConvertKit) |
|---|---|---|
| Email newsletters | Built-in, unlimited sends | Core product |
| Website/blog | Full CMS with themes | Creator profile only (link-in-bio) |
| Visual automation | Basic (welcome emails, tiers) | Advanced (drag-and-drop builder) |
| SEO tools | Built-in (sitemaps, schema, meta) | None |
| Paid memberships | Native, 0% platform fee | Kit Commerce, 0.6% fee |
| Custom domain | Included free | Available |
| Design control | Full theme system, custom CSS | Limited (no HTML editing) |
| Tagging & segmentation | Labels, tiers, newsletters | Advanced tags, scoring (Pro) |
| A/B testing | Subject lines | Subject lines only (2 variants) |
| Referral program | Via third-party (Zapier) | Built-in (SparkLoop, Creator Pro) |
| Free plan | None (Ghost(Pro) is paid) | Up to 10,000 subscribers |
| Self-hosting | Yes (open-source, MIT) | No |
| Revenue share | 0% | 0.6% on Kit Commerce |
Where Kit Still Wins
Kit has real advantages in specific areas:
Visual automation builder. Kit’s drag-and-drop automation workflows with branching logic based on subscriber behavior, tags, and custom fields are genuinely superior to Ghost’s simpler email capabilities. If complex multi-step email sequences drive your business, Kit’s automation builder is hard to beat.
Advanced tagging and segmentation. Tag subscribers based on link clicks, form completions, purchases, or custom rules. Kit’s subscriber management is more granular than Ghost’s label-based system, especially with Creator Pro’s subscriber scoring.
Built-in referral program. Kit acquired SparkLoop in 2023 and integrated it into Creator Pro. A newsletter referral system without needing a third-party tool is a real advantage for growth-focused creators.
10,000-subscriber free plan. Kit’s Newsletter plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails for free. Ghost has no free hosted plan — the minimum is $15/month for the Starter plan.
Email-first design. Kit’s plain-text-leaning email approach often achieves better deliverability and feels more personal than heavily designed newsletters.
Where Ghost Wins
A real website that ranks in search. Every Ghost post is a permanent, indexable web page with proper SEO markup. When I checked the source of our demo sites, each post has proper Article schema markup, Open Graph tags, and appears in a clean XML sitemap. This means your best content drives organic traffic for years — not just the 48 hours after you hit send.
Publish-and-email in one action. Write a post in Ghost, choose your audience, publish — it goes to your website and your subscribers’ inboxes simultaneously. Kit users have to maintain a separate website and manually coordinate between platforms.
Full design control. Ghost’s theme system lets you customize every visual element of your publication. Custom homepage layouts, dark mode, reading progress bars, photo galleries — all controlled through professional themes without touching code.
Our Rune theme includes a visitor-controlled theme switcher, featured post highlights, and multiple post layout options.
0% revenue share on memberships. Ghost takes nothing from your subscription revenue. Kit Commerce charges 0.6% before Stripe’s fees. On $5,000/month in revenue, that’s $30/month to Kit vs. $0 to Ghost.
Open source and nonprofit. Ghost is run by a nonprofit foundation under the MIT license. It can’t be acquired. Kit is a private company that raised prices 35% overnight — and could do so again.
Pricing Comparison
Kit Pricing (as of February 2026)
| Plan | 1,000 subs | 3,000 subs | 5,000 subs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newsletter (Free) | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Creator | $39/mo | $59/mo | $89/mo |
| Creator Pro | $79/mo | — | — |
Annual billing gets a 16% discount (Creator starts at ~$33/month for 1,000 subscribers).
Ghost(Pro) Pricing (as of February 2026)
| Plan | Monthly (billed annually) | Members | Staff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $15/mo | 1,000 | 1 |
| Publisher | $29/mo | 1,000 | 3 |
| Business | $199/mo | 10,000 | 15 |
All Ghost(Pro) plans include unlimited email sends, SSL, CDN, backups, and a free custom domain.
The Break-Even
Kit Creator at 1,000 subscribers: $39/month for email only (no website, no SEO, no memberships).
Ghost Publisher: $29/month for email + website + memberships + SEO.
Ghost is cheaper from day one if you need a website. It’s cheaper from 60 paid subscribers if you compare just the monetization capabilities. And it includes unlimited email sends, so your costs don’t increase as your list grows within plan limits.
Who Should Stay with Kit
Kit is the right choice if:
- Complex email automation sequences are central to your business
- You already have a website you’re happy with and just need an email tool
- You value Kit’s 10,000-subscriber free plan for getting started
- The built-in referral program (SparkLoop) is important for your growth strategy
- You sell digital products and need Kit Commerce’s checkout flow
Who Should Switch to Ghost
Ghost is the better platform if:
- You want a website and newsletter in one platform, not two
- Your content should rank in search engines, not just live in inboxes
- You want paid memberships with 0% platform fee
- Kit’s price increases concern you and you want predictable costs
- Full design control matters — your publication should look distinctly yours
- You prefer open-source software you can self-host if needed
Making the Switch
Ghost can import Kit subscribers. The migration:
- Export your Kit subscribers (Subscribers → Export → CSV)
- Import the CSV into Ghost via the Admin panel
- Set up your custom domain
- Install a theme that represents your brand
- Configure your newsletter settings and email design
- Connect Stripe for paid memberships
The technical migration takes a few hours. Your subscribers will need to be notified about the move, but most creators who’ve switched report retention above 90%.
Choose Your Brand’s Look
Moving to Ghost means your publication finally gets its own identity. Ghost themes give you what Kit’s limited templates can’t: a complete website that looks like it belongs to you.
Our Flow theme includes sidebar navigation, a highlights carousel, and PWA support — designed for content creators who want a distinctive web presence.
Recommended Themes
These themes excel at the features discussed in this article.
