Ghost Newsletter: The Complete Guide to Email Publishing

What Is Ghost Newsletter?

Ghost includes a full email newsletter system built directly into the publishing platform. Write a post, choose your audience, click publish — it goes to your website and your subscribers’ inboxes simultaneously. No Mailchimp. No ConvertKit. No third-party integrations to manage.

Ghost’s newsletter system handles everything: subscriber management, email design, audience segmentation, delivery analytics, and automation. The platform takes 0% of your revenue — you only pay Stripe’s processing fee (~2.9% + $0.30) on paid subscriptions.

Total publisher earnings on Ghost have surpassed $100 million, with Ghost taking 0% of that revenue.

Setting Up Your First Ghost Newsletter

Step 1: Enable Newsletter Sending

In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Email newsletter. Toggle on newsletter sending.

• Ghost(Pro): Email delivery is already configured. Ghost handles SPF, DKIM, DMARC authentication, blocklist monitoring, and sending domain reputation.
• Self-hosted: You’ll need to configure Mailgun (covered later in this guide).

Step 2: Create a Newsletter

Go to Settings → Email newsletter → Newsletters → Add newsletter.

Configure:

• Name and description — the internal identifier and what subscribers see
• Sender name — the “From” name in subscribers’ inboxes
• Reply-to email — where responses go when subscribers hit reply
• Opt-in toggle — whether existing members are auto-subscribed

Ghost supports multiple newsletters per site. Each has its own subscription list, settings, and template. Common setups:

• Topic segmentation — a weekly product roundup and a monthly deep analysis
• Frequency segmentation — daily news briefs and weekly digests
• Content type segmentation — articles vs. podcast episode notifications

Members subscribe to individual newsletters at signup or through their account preferences.

Step 3: Configure Signup Forms

Ghost offers three methods for collecting subscribers:

Portal (Default): A floating signup button appears on every page. Customize its appearance and which newsletters to display in Settings → Membership → Portal.

Embeddable Forms: Go to Settings → Membership → Embeddable signup form. Choose between branded (with your logo) or minimal (just an email field). Copy the embed code and paste it on any website. Labels track which form or page drove each subscriber.

Portal Links: Add #/portal/signup to any link to trigger the signup modal:

<a href="#/portal/signup">Subscribe to our newsletter</a>

This works in posts, pages, and navigation — giving you signup opportunities anywhere on your site.

Email Design and Templates

Go to Settings → Email newsletter → Newsletters → [Your Newsletter] → Edit → Design.

Global Design Options

• Email background color — sets the overall email canvas
• Heading and body font — choose from Ghost’s font library
• Heading weight — bold or normal

Header and Body Styling

• Header image — recommended 1200×600 PNG with transparent background
• Post title color and alignment — customize headline presentation
• Button style — corner shape (square, rounded, pill), appearance (filled/outline), color
• Link color and style — underlined, regular, or bold
• Image corners — rounded or square
• Divider color — separates email sections

Footer Options

• Audience feedback — “More like this” / “Less like this” buttons
• Comments link — drives engagement back to your site
• Recent posts — cross-promotion within the email
• Subscription details — shows the reader which newsletter they’re subscribed to

Ghost’s email templates render correctly across Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook without additional CSS work.

Configuring Mailgun for Ghost

Skip this section if you’re on Ghost(Pro) — email delivery is already handled.

For self-hosted Ghost, Mailgun is the only supported bulk email API. Ghost sends newsletters through Mailgun’s API (not SMTP) for reliability and deliverability tracking.

1. Create a Mailgun Account

Sign up at mailgun.com. Add a sending domain — recommended format: mg.yourdomain.com. Using a subdomain keeps your root domain’s email reputation separate.

2. Configure DNS Records

Add the SPF and DKIM records Mailgun provides to your domain’s DNS. Also add a DMARC record:

Type: TXT
Name: _dmarc.yourdomain.com
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none;

Start with p=none to monitor, then escalate to p=quarantine or p=reject after confirming deliverability.

3. Add to Ghost

In Ghost Admin: Settings → Email newsletter → enter your Mailgun region (US or EU), domain, and API key.

4. Configure Transactional Email (SMTP)

Mailgun handles bulk newsletters. For transactional emails (signup confirmations, magic login links), add SMTP to your config.production.json:

{
  "mail": {
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "service": "Mailgun",
      "host": "smtp.mailgun.org",
      "port": 587,
      "auth": {
        "user": "postmaster@mg.yourdomain.com",
        "pass": "your-mailgun-smtp-password"
      }
    }
  }
}

5. Test

Send a test email from Settings → Email newsletter to verify delivery before sending to your full list.

Mailgun Pricing (2026)

Mailgun raised Flex plan pricing on December 1, 2025 (doubled from $1 to $2 per 1,000 messages). Current plans as of early 2026:

For newsletters under 1,000 members, Ghost(Pro) Publisher at $29/month (with unlimited sends included) is often more cost-effective than self-hosting with Mailgun. See our self-hosting guide for a full cost comparison.

Subscriber Management and Segmentation

Sending to Segments

When publishing, the email panel lets you choose your audience:

• All members — everyone on your list
• Free members only — non-paying subscribers
• Paid members only — paying subscribers
• Specific label — a custom segment you’ve created

Publishing Modes

• Publish and email — post goes to your website and inboxes simultaneously
• Publish only — appears on your website with no email send
• Email only — sends to subscribers without creating a public web post (good for exclusive content, roundups, or promotions)

Email-Only Content Within Posts

Insert an “Email content” card (via the / menu in the editor) to add content that appears only in the email version, not on the web. Useful for subscriber-only calls-to-action inside publicly visible posts.

Content Access and Email Delivery

Post access level automatically determines email delivery. A post set to “Paid Members Only” is emailed only to paying subscribers. A post set to “Members” goes to both free and paid.

Newsletter Analytics and Open Rates

Ghost provides per-send email analytics accessible via the graph icon in the Post list:

• Opens — unique member opens / total recipients = open rate
• Clicks — unique member clicks / total recipients = click rate
• Individual link performance — each link with unique click counts
• Audience feedback — “More like this” / “Less like this” responses
• Benchmarking — your rate vs. your last 20 newsletters

Ghost 6.0 added a dedicated Newsletter tab in Analytics with subscriber growth graphs, average open/click rates by date range, and filtering across multiple newsletters.

Open Rate Reality Check

Industry-wide average open rates sit around 42-44% (2025 data from MailerLite). But this number is misleading.

Important caveat: Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) preloads email content for Apple Mail users, registering an “open” even if the reader never saw it. Since Apple Mail holds roughly 50% of email client market share, this inflates open rates significantly. All open rate data since late 2021 is unreliable as a true engagement metric. Click-through rate is a more honest measure — the 2025 industry average click-to-open rate is around 6.8%.

Improving Deliverability

The practices that matter most:

• Limit links — keep to 12 or fewer per email. Excessive links trigger spam filters.
• Avoid spam trigger words — “free,” “act now,” “urgent” in subject lines reduce deliverability
• Ask subscribers to add you — in your welcome email, ask readers to move you to their Primary tab (Gmail) and add your address to contacts
• Clean your list — periodically remove subscribers who haven’t opened in 6+ months. A smaller engaged list outperforms a large inactive one.
• Test before sending — run your email through mail-tester.com to check authentication and content quality

Custom Sending Domain

Available on Ghost(Pro) Publisher plan and higher. Changes your “From” address from noreply@ghost.io to newsletter@yourdomain.com.

Setup: Settings → Domain → Setup → add DNS records → activate. New sending domains require approximately 6 weeks of warmup. Unless you send more than 50,000 emails per month, Ghost’s shared ghost.io domain performs well.

Your Theme Shapes the Newsletter Experience

The email itself looks the same regardless of theme — Ghost’s email renderer is theme-independent. But your website is where subscribers find you, sign up, browse archives, and decide whether to pay. That experience depends entirely on your theme.

A theme with custom sign-up pages, membership tier displays, and a well-organized post archive converts visitors into subscribers more effectively than Ghost’s default Portal modal. Luno includes a newsletter-focused homepage layout. Shiro has built-in search that helps readers find past issues. Both include custom membership pages for the signup flow.

Browse newsletter-ready Ghost themes →

Common Questions

How many newsletters can I create?

Ghost supports unlimited newsletters per site. Each has its own subscriber list, settings, and design template. Members manage their individual newsletter subscriptions through their account.

Can I schedule newsletter sends?

Yes. Use the scheduling feature in the publish panel — set a date and time, and Ghost sends the email automatically. This is the same scheduling system used for regular posts.

Ghost newsletter vs Substack — what’s the difference?

Ghost gives you full ownership: your domain, your design, your audience data, 0% platform fee. Substack takes 10%, controls the platform, and your publication lives on substack.com. See our full Ghost vs Substack comparison.

Ghost newsletter vs Beehiiv?

Both are strong newsletter platforms. Ghost excels at web publishing + email in one platform with 0% revenue share. Beehiiv focuses on email-first with ad monetization. Ghost gives you more design control through themes; Beehiiv has more email-specific features like A/B testing and referral programs.

Can I migrate my newsletter from another platform?

Yes. Import subscriber emails via CSV in Settings → Import/Export. For Substack specifically, Ghost has a dedicated migration tool. Content, subscriber lists, and redirects can all be transferred.

How much does Ghost newsletter cost?

Ghost(Pro) Starter ($18/month) includes free members and newsletters. For paid subscriptions, Publisher ($29/month) is the entry point. Self-hosted Ghost is free, but you’ll need Mailgun (from $2/1,000 emails on the Flex plan, or $35/month for Foundation) plus a VPS ($4-12/month). For most publishers, Ghost(Pro) Publisher at $29/month is the simplest option.