beehiiv vs Ghost: My honest review after running a business on both

If you’re stuck choosing between beehiiv vs Ghost, you're probably getting lost in their features. I'm here to help you make sense of the core differences between these two popular platforms

I used beehiiv from 2023-2025 and I've been on Ghost ever since. I like both but they operate completely differently. There's no one right choice for every newsletter writer because they each have strengths and weaknesses.

Instead of trying to crown a best platform, let me map the trade-offs for you. I’ll show you how beehiiv excels in the growth and monetization side, how Ghost is beloved for its publishing tools, and how to decide based on the kind of publisher you are.

Watch the video version

The core difference: blog-first vs newsletter-first

Most "beehiiv vs Ghost" comparisons miss this product philosophy difference.

Ghost is a blog platform with newsletter capabilities

Ghost is blog-first. The web design is the star. You can take your pick of well-designed themes and you can hire development help at very affordable rates.

The newsletter system exists, but it's pretty barebones. No automation. Very little segmentation. Clunky signup. Poor source tracking. It works for sending newsletters, but it gets more complicated if you want to include and exclude people based on behavior or tags.

beehiiv is a newsletter platform with website capabilities

beehiiv is newsletter-first. They've added a website builder with their acquisition of Typedream, but the product centers around newsletters. beehiiv excels at robust newsletter tooling like segmentation, automation, conditional formatting and source attribution.

Their web builder is a pain in the ass in my opinion. I'm sure it will get better, but right now, it's way more work than I wanted to put into my site and that's the main reason I left.

Why this difference matters

If you're moving from just sending newsletters to running a publication, you'll start caring more about your web presence. That's when Ghost starts to feel like the obvious choice.

If you're staying newsletter-focused or care more about growth tooling and analytics, beehiiv is a better move.

✅ What beehiiv is best at

Best in class analytics

The number one thing I miss about beehiiv is their analytics, especially the source tracking. beehiiv does a great job of telling you where subscribers come from without you having to set up a complicated tracking system.

Even better, it doesn't stop at source. You can also see:

• Open rate by source
• Click rate by source
• Paid subscribers by source
• Unsubscribes by source

That gives you a real sense of list quality, not just list size.

The beehiiv founding team understands the paid acquisition side of newsletter growth and they built what serious newsletter operators actually need.

Conditional blocks to show and hide content

If you run a paid newsletter, conditional blocks is one of those features you don't appreciate until you lose it.

In beehiiv, I can write one newsletter, then set visibility rules on blocks. I can show one section to free readers, a different section to paid readers, or even target specific tiers.

On Ghost, that's not possible. There's one block with limited usefulness, but in practice I end up sending two different emails, which is annoying and creates more room for mistakes.

Segments and automations to help you sell better

Segmentation and automations are another area where beehiiv clearly demonstrates that it was designed by people who've actually run newsletter businesses.

One example that comes up all the time: excludes.

If I want to email all paid subscribers except people who already RSVPed to an event, Ghost can't do that. I have to create a brand-new segment that only includes the people I want. It works, but it's clunky.

beehiiv makes segmentation more open-ended. You can include and exclude. You can use dynamic or static segments. Once you start doing more than "send this newsletter to everyone," that flexibility matters.

Automations also exist inside beehiiv (you still have to build them). You can run:

• Welcome flows
• Paid welcome flows
• Upsell flows
• Retention flows
• Win-back flows

And you don't need extra software to do it.

The ad network for newbies

If your plan is to run a sponsor-backed newsletter, beehiiv is built around that model. They are investing a lot of time into their ad network. You can insert ads from brands without having to sell them yourself. For newer publishers, it can act like training wheels on the way to bigger sponsorships. There's a marketplace of advertisers and you can add placements in a couple of clicks.

For more advanced newsletter writers, selling sponsorships yourself is much more lucrative. beehiiv does have a sponsorship sales page you can deploy but it's not going to take much work off of you. You may find their conditional blocks and analytics are key to your sponsorship success though, even if you don't use their built-in ad features.

beehiiv's robust API lets you automate even more

beehiiv's API is another huge plus. It's strong, they keep improving it, and they seem open to adjusting it based on publisher feedback.

Because it hooks into Zapier, you can connect beehiiv to a lot of other tools and create workflows that feel almost invisible to your subscribers. I used to run two different paid subscriptions, and when someone joined one, they could be added to the other automatically through Zapier in the background. That kind of flexibility is easy to underestimate until you need it.

❌ Where beehiiv falls short

The website builder became a time sink

For me, the number one downside of beehiiv is the website builder and the design complexity. I don't want to spend weekends fiddling with layouts. I want to write, publish, and have things look good without having to check a bunch of settings.

Once beehiiv went deeper on web building, I found myself dealing with design issues I didn't want. There isn't a big ecosystem yet for hiring out beehiiv site work. That will change, but right now it can be a pain if you don't enjoy spending time on web design.

They're venture-backed

A lot of people tell me they don't like beehiiv's vibe. I get it, but I think judging a tech company based on vibes is a strange way to operate. The team is smart and they know what they're doing.

The bigger warning sign, in my opinion, is that they're venture capital backed. In tech, that often leads to feature bloat over time because growth expectations push products to expand in every direction. That doesn't mean beehiiv is bad. It just means it's likely to get unwieldly and out of step with what indie publishers want in the next few years. It's in a great place to be now, but keep an eye on them because venture-backed tech rarely works out for the user longterm.

✅ What Ghost is best at

I moved from beehiiv to Ghost because I wanted to shift from being a newsletter publisher to being a blogger with a newsletter, and I wanted to spend my time writing, not designing.

The Ghost theme and developer ecosystem is stronger

I hate dealing with web design. I'm a former designer but dealing with a million tiny layout decisions eats time fast.

With Ghost, you choose a theme—either one of their built-in themes or a theme from a developer. You can customize it to your liking, but all customization is done with code so either you'll code or you'll hire a developer to do it. It's an extra cost but it means that your design is much more stable and you can focus on writing.

Ghost has a more robust theme ecosystem than beehiiv. There are themes for publishers, bloggers, portfolios, and beyond. It's not WordPress-level huge, but there's plenty to choose from.

I've worked with Norbert at Bright Themes for Ghost. I bought a theme from him and paid for a couple rounds of customization. It cost a couple thousand dollars total. As a full-time publisher, budgeting $1,000 to $2,000 a year for development is worth it to me. I'd rather pay that than spend my own time adjusting design details.

Default newsletter design looks great out of the box

Ghost's newsletter system is rudimentary, but the default email layout looks really good. Customization options are limited (basically adding your logo.) It's not like beehiiv where you can control every single design element.

Still, the default Ghost newsletter layout feels graceful. The typesetting looks perfect. The reading experience feels like what email should look like in 2026. It's modern, simple and focused on your writing.

It's not venture-backed

A lot of publishers prefer Ghost because it's open source and a nonprofit based in Singapore. They have a more stable trajectory because of that and they're not building features to appease investors, nor are they aiming for an exit.

You can actually save a little money if you host away from Ghost.org with a company that hosts Ghost sites (like Magic Pages) too. That's the benefit of open source. You're not locked into one mode of operation.

❌ Where Ghost falls short

No built-in automations

This one still shocks me. Ghost doesn't include automation flows. They just built a welcome email (as of February 2026) but it's super basic, comes from a no-reply email and doesn't allow any special formatting.

That's why I partnered with Outpost, which is essential if you're using Ghost for a real business and not just as a hobby blog. If you need a welcome sequence, an upsell flow, or any kind of subscriber lifecycle messaging, you'll need something like Outpost.

Segmentation exists, but it's harder than it should be

You can filter members in Ghost by different factors, but segmentation doesn't feel designed for the way publishers actually run newsletters.

In beehiiv, segmentation feels like it was built by operators. In Ghost, it feels like it was built by people who heard segmentation should exist.

Developer-first in unhelpful ways

Ghost sometimes ships features that feel experimental but not business-oriented, like the recommendations feature that doesn't feel well integrated, or the federated social network plugin that broadcasts posts to the open web. I understand the idea, but I don't find it that useful for most publishers.

I wish the Ghost team would do more user research with the kinds of publishers building real businesses on Ghost. Right now, it feels like they're playing catch-up with Substack and beehiiv in a way that doesn't always land.

Analytics are weak

My Ghost analytics have been completely broken and inaccurate. I don't know if that's universal or just my account, but either way, it's been a disappointment. I've come to terms with the fact that I won't have some data I want but their vague dashboards don't give you much to go on if you're spending time on list growth, improving paid subscriptions or selling sponsorships. You will get less data from them than from beehiiv.

Which is better: Ghost or beehiiv?

Beyond what I covered above, here's a few of the key features publishers mention to me and how I think they stack up between Ghost and beehiiv.

The big takeaway: beehiiv is better for running a newsletter machine. Ghost is better for running a publishing workflow and a nicely designed web experience.

How to decide

Start with your primary publishing identity

If you're newsletter-first, beehiiv is hard to beat. The analytics, growth tooling, segmentation, and automations support that working style.

If you're blog-first, Ghost is a more natural choice. Your archive matters. Your design matters. Your ease of publishing will improve with Ghost.

Do you want "plug-and-play" or "roll your own"?

beehiiv is more plug-and-play. You can grow inside their ecosystem with tools like boosts, referrals, recommendations, automations, and the ad network.

Ghost is more roll-your-own. You'll likely need Zapier and Outpost. And you'll build more of your own systems. The benefit is that those systems feel more like you own them. They're longer lasting, but it can be more work up front—especially if you don't find a theme that suits what you need.

Neither will find your audience for you

If you're making the move from Substack, you won't find any viral growth inside either of these platforms. beehiiv is definitely better at newsletter growth with several built-in tools like a referral program, boosts, recommendations and better subscribe embeds. But even with all that, you'll still have to drive your own newsletter growth.

Ghost will give you a higher quality list because there's no gimmicky ways to grow there. Neither will find your audience for you. I'd argue Substack doesn't do that either. They made it easy for user email addresses to get widely shared. That doesn't mean those people are your audience or even reading your work.

beehiiv vs Ghost is less about which is the best and more about what kind of publication you're running. beehiiv is for newsletter businesses. Ghost is for blogs that have newsletters. Whichever way you go, remember that you have to run your business. No platform will do that for you. Keep a light touch on your tech and be ready to make moves when you inevitably outgrow it.

Watch my comparison of beehiiv vs Ghost in this video.