Beehiiv vs Ghost.org – Which Newsletter Platform is Best Overall?

From the desk of David Utke

Subj: Best platform for building a profitable weekly email newsletter

When it comes to building a newsletter website and email marketing platform, two names consistently rise to the top: Beehiiv and Ghost.org. Both platforms offer compelling features for content creators, but they serve slightly different purposes and excel in different areas.

I’ve worked extensively with both platforms, creating tutorials and building websites on each. After diving deep into their capabilities, I’m here to break down exactly how these two platforms stack up against each other across every dimension that matters.

Primary Focus: Newsletter vs. Publishing Platform

The fundamental difference between these platforms lies in their core mission and design philosophy.

Beehiiv exists for one primary purpose

That purpose is to help you create a branded email newsletter website and a branded email newsletter. That’s it. Their focus isn’t really on blogging or anything else, it’s primarily on the newsletter experience.

When you build with Beehiiv, the newsletter is the core offer. You’re going to Beehiiv because you’re wanting to create something like “The Saturday Entrepreneur Newsletter” where you invite people to “join 7,000 other subscribers.”

The goal with Beehiiv is to get people onto your email newsletter and then contact your audience directly via direct response email marketing. People aren’t necessarily going to be navigating directly to your Beehiiv website per se, the website exists to support the newsletter, not the other way around.

Ghost.org’s Approach

Ghost.org takes a different approach. It’s more of a combination blogging platform with email marketing and paid subscriptions all built in.

The end result with a Ghost.org website is that you’re going to have some type of independent publishing site – think something like “The David Report” where people navigate directly to your website to log in, access private content, and subscribe to your email newsletter through the platform.

With Ghost, you’re building a destination website with private members-only content, paid subscription tiers, and a full-featured blog that happens to have email marketing capabilities.

The Bottom Line Both platforms give you a website and email marketing capabilities, but the overall intent is different. Beehiiv is newsletter-first with a supporting website, while Ghost is website-first with integrated email marketing.

Content Creation: Basic vs. Feature-Rich

This is where the platforms really start to diverge, and Ghost.org takes a clear lead.

Beehiiv’s Content Creation With Beehiiv, the content creation process is pretty straightforward. You go to your post section and write a post with H1, H2, H3 title tags, text, images, videos, and buttons. Nothing too fancy. You do have customization over how the email looks, but it’s pretty basic overall.

Since Beehiiv is still relatively new and focused primarily on email marketing, their content creation tools reflect that simplicity. It gets the job done, but don’t expect advanced features.

Ghost’s Content Creation Powerhouse Ghost is much more feature-rich. You get all the basic stuff like H2, H3 title tags, text paragraphs, images, and videos, but Ghost also includes a lot of additional blocks that make content creation significantly more powerful:

• Free Preview Block: If you have private content, you can make the top part publicly available and close off the bottom part for paying members only
• Email Only Block: When writing a blog post that you’ll send to your audience, content in this block is only readable in an email client – perfect for adding personal touches to your newsletter version
• Call-to-Action Blocks: Professional-looking CTAs that convert better than basic text links
• Product Blocks: Showcase products or services directly in your content

Ghost is very powerful and feature-rich, with useful blogging features designed to make your content more engaging and high-converting.

Publishing Options Both platforms work functionally the same way when it comes to publishing. You create a blog post, and when you’re ready to publish, you can choose what to do with it:

• Publish to your website and send to your email list
• Only send to your email list
• Only publish on your website
• Send to specific subscriber tiers (like paying subscribers only)

Both Beehiiv and Ghost.org allow you to have paying subscribers and send private members-only content.

Winner: Ghost.org – The content creation process is simply more robust with a wider range of features to increase engagement and create high-converting blog posts.

SEO: Clear Winner

Not much to say here – Ghost is better for SEO, hands down.

Ghost has significantly better SEO capabilities than Beehiiv websites. I don’t really see Beehiiv websites ranking particularly well in search engines, whereas with a Ghost.org website, you can absolutely rank and get organic search traffic.

I rank with my Ghost.org blog and get organic search traffic every day that converts meaningfully:

Again, this goes back to Beehiiv being focused as an email newsletter solution. You can publish content that’s publicly available, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to get ranked and indexed by search engines effectively.

Technical SEO Details Both platforms allow you to have basic control over on-page SEO – creating title tags, metadata, and so forth.

However, there’s one small detail I don’t like about Beehiiv: their blog posts have URLs like website.com/p/post-title, whereas Ghost.org websites use the cleaner website.com/post-title format. It’s a tiny thing, but I prefer the cleaner URL structure.

The Verdict If creating blog posts and ranking them in search engines is important to your strategy, you’re probably going to prefer Ghost.org over Beehiiv.

Email Marketing and Automations: Beehiiv Dominates

This is where there’s really no comparison – Beehiiv absolutely crushes Ghost.org in this department.

Beehiiv’s Automation Power

With Beehiiv, you can set up sophisticated email automations. Since it’s designed as a branded email newsletter platform, you get access to powerful automation features on the back end. If you’re trying to sell a product or course, you can create a year-long automation sequence if you want. It’s incredibly powerful.

You can set up automations for a wide range of purposes beyond just selling:

• Re-engagement sequences: If people aren’t opening your emails, send them through a recovery email sequence to get them re-engaged
• Subscription management: Send emails asking if people still want to stay subscribed, and if they don’t respond, tag and remove them appropriately
• Onboarding sequences: Create welcome series for new subscribers
• Product sales funnels: Build sophisticated sequences to sell products and services

Ghost.org’s Limitations

With Ghost.org, you can’t set up automations. It’s really just direct response email marketing. You can send out a weekly email newsletter but you don’t have access to any sophisticated automations on the back end.

Ghost does have very basic automations like directing new subscribers to a thank you page and sending a welcome email, but that’s as far as it goes.

You can manually filter your email list to see people who have unsubscribed or haven’t been opening emails, then manually remove them, but there’s no built-in automation for list management.

When Automations Matter If automations are very important to you, if you need to create:

• Email onboarding sequences
• Re-engagement emails
• Product sales funnels
• Even a year-long autoresponder sequences

Then you’re going to love Beehiiv.

Ghost.org is just direct response email marketing without the automation sophistication.

Monetization: Beehiiv’s Multiple Revenue Streams

Beehiiv really stands out in the monetization department, offering more built-in revenue opportunities than Ghost.org.

Make money with Beehiiv

Beehiiv’s Monetization Arsenal Beehiiv offers several monetization options:

1. Paid Subscriptions: Standard paid subscription functionality with monthly or yearly options
2. Private Members-Only Content: Restrict content to paying subscribers
3. Built-in Ad Network: When you publish and send emails, you can include display ads within the email once you qualify
4. Boost Feature: Accept cross-promotion from other newsletters. When people subscribe to your website, a lightbox appears suggesting other newsletters. You get paid when people subscribe to these other newsletters – this can become quite lucrative
5. Automation-Powered Sales: Use the automation features to create sophisticated sales processes for products or services

Make money with Ghost.org

Ghost.org’s Monetization Options Ghost.org offers solid but more limited monetization:

1. Paid Subscriptions: Same as Beehiiv – monthly or yearly options connected through Stripe
2. Three Content Tiers: Public content, members-only content (free subscribers), and paid subscriber content
3. Manual Ad Management: You can run ads in your newsletter, but you have to handle advertiser relationships manually

Content Display Quality I give Ghost.org the edge on how private members-only content actually looks. When someone clicks into a private blog post on Ghost, they can read a bit of it, then hit a content-locked block that prompts them to subscribe. It looks professional and converts well.

Winner: Beehiiv – The native ad network and Boost feature give Beehiiv more passive income opportunities, plus the automation capabilities enable more sophisticated sales processes.

Customization: Ghost’s Flexibility vs. Beehiiv’s Simplicity

If website customization is important to you, you’re probably going to prefer Ghost.org over Beehiiv.

Beehiiv’s Limitations

Beehiiv is honestly kind of cookie-cutter. Beehiiv websites all tend to look the same, sort of like Substack websites. You have very limited control over how your website looks – just basic customization like colors, logos, homepage format, and subscribe page layout.

Beehiiv is rolling out some type of website builder that’s still in beta at the time I’m writing this, so more customization options may be coming. But right now, if you just want an email newsletter website and basic customization is fine, Beehiiv works. However, if having a cool, branded, unique-looking website is important to you, you’ll find Beehiiv limiting.

Ghost.org’s Customization Power

Ghost.org, like WordPress, is fully customizable. On their cheapest plan, you are limited in what themes you can use, but once you upgrade your account, you unlock everything. You can add custom themes and design any type of theme exactly how you like.

Email Design Quality Regarding the actual emails your audience receives, I give the edge to Ghost.org. The emails from Ghost just look great out of the box.

Beehiiv emails look okay, but Ghost gives you more control and flexibility over the look and feel of your emails. Beehiiv’s email customization can be a little confusing and overwhelming for complete beginners.

Bottom Line If your primary focus is building an email newsletter and basic customization is fine, Beehiiv works even with its cookie-cutter appearance.

If having a branded, unique-looking website is very important to you, you’ll be much happier with Ghost.org.

Ease of Use: Ghost Takes the Lead

Ghost.org is by far way more simple and easy to use than Beehiiv. This is actually why I created that detailed Beehiiv tutorial video – because I find Beehiiv a little bit confusing for complete beginners.

Beehiiv’s Learning Curve When you’re trying to set up everything with Beehiiv, you have to deal with:

• Complex DNS setup using their entry feature
• Multiple different name servers for the website and email marketing aspects
• Setting up different domain names or subdomains for emails (different from your primary website domain)
• Various technical details on the back end that can confuse average users

Ghost.org’s Simplicity Ghost.org is refreshingly simple:

1. Sign up and pay for your account
2. Set a custom domain name by pointing name servers to your domain registrar
3. Set up a Stripe account to accept payments for paid subscriptions
4. You’re done

It’s really that simple. Ghost.org is very intuitive, particularly if you’re coming from WordPress.

Long-term Usability Once you get over the initial learning curve with Beehiiv, it becomes pretty simple to use on a day-to-day basis. But that initial setup can be a barrier for many users who just want to get started quickly.

Pricing: Free vs. Affordable

Beehiiv’s Pricing Advantage Beehiiv shines with their completely free plan that you can use to grow your email list. Yes, it’s going to be a subdomain (like mywebsite.beehiiv.com), and you don’t get access to automations, but you can grow your email list without paying anything upfront.

When you’re ready to upgrade and access automations (which I highly recommend since automations are powerful for selling products and creating onboarding sequences), the paid plan runs about $30+ per month.

Ghost.org’s Pricing Ghost doesn’t offer a free plan, but they do have a $9 per month plan (about $100 per year). This gets you 500 email subscribers, and you can email them as many times as you like – daily if you want.

Value Comparison

• Beehiiv: Free to start, ~$30/month for full features
• Ghost.org: $9/month minimum, no free option

If you want a completely free way to start building your email list, Beehiiv wins. If you don’t mind paying a small monthly fee for a more polished, easier-to-use platform, Ghost.org offers good value.

Final Verdict: Which Platform Should You Choose?

Both platforms are solid choices, but they serve different needs:

Choose Beehiiv if:

• Your primary focus is building an email newsletter
• You want powerful automation capabilities
• You need multiple monetization options (ads, boost, subscriptions)
• You want to start completely free
• You don’t mind a learning curve and cookie-cutter design

Choose Ghost.org if:

• You want to build a professional publishing website
• SEO and organic traffic are important to your strategy
• You prefer ease of use and polished design
• You want more content creation features and customization
• You don’t mind paying from day one

My Personal Take

If you’re serious about email marketing and want the most powerful automation and monetization features, Beehiiv is the way to go despite its limitations.

The automation capabilities and built-in revenue streams like the ad network and Boost feature make it incredibly powerful for creators who want to maximize their newsletter income.

However, if you want to build a professional online presence that attracts both direct visitors and email subscribers, with better SEO capabilities and a more polished user experience, Ghost.org is the smarter choice.

The decision ultimately comes down to your primary goal.

Are you building a newsletter business (Beehiiv) or a content publishing business (Ghost.org)? Both can be successful, but they represent different approaches to online content creation and audience building.

Consider your technical comfort level, budget, long-term goals, and whether automation features are critical to your success. Both platforms will serve you well, it’s just a matter of which aligns better with your specific vision and needs.

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