Ghost itself is free and open source. Hosting it is not. This is what it actually costs in 2026, including the line items most comparisons quietly omit.
The short answer
Expect $5–15 per month for managed Ghost hosting, or $5–12 per month for a VPS you run yourself. The sticker prices are close. What differs is what else you end up paying for, and how many of your own hours the cheap option consumes.
Route 1: managed Ghost hosting
You pay a monthly fee, and the provider owns the server, the upgrades and the backups.
| Cost | Typical | Ours |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting plan | $5–25/month | $5–12/month |
| Extra sites | Usually a tier jump | $2/month each |
| SSL certificate | Usually included | Included |
| Backups | Sometimes an add-on | Included, more on higher plans |
| Custom domain | Usually included | Included |
Our own pricing is on the pricing page and is set from the same database rows that page renders, so it cannot drift from what you are quoted: $5/month for 1 site, $8 for 3, $12 for 10, or ten months' price if you pay yearly.
The trap to check for: whether more sites means a tier jump. Going from one blog to two should not double your bill. We sell extra sites individually at $2/month for exactly that reason.
Route 2: self-hosting on a VPS
| Cost | Typical |
|---|---|
| VPS (2 GB RAM) | $6–12/month |
| Backup storage | $1–5/month |
| Domain | ~$12/year |
| SSL | Free (Let's Encrypt) |
| Your time | 1–3 hours setup, then ongoing |
The server is cheap. The honest line item is the last one, and it is the one nobody puts in the table.
Budget an evening for the first install, then a recurring hour every few months for OS patching, Ghost upgrades and checking that your backups still restore. If that hour is worth $50 to you, self-hosting costs more than managed hosting from month one.
The costs both routes share
These apply wherever you host, and they are where budgets actually go wrong.
- Email delivery — $0–20/month. Ghost needs a transactional mail provider for newsletters and member sign-in links. It does not send mail on its own. Our platform has no outbound mail at all, so if newsletters matter to you, we are not your host — see the FAQ. We would rather lose the sale than take it.
- A domain — around $12/year. Not included by anyone worth using.
- A CDN — $0–20/month. Optional. Cloudflare's free tier covers most blogs.
- A premium theme — $0–100 once. Optional.
First-year totals
For one blog, no newsletter:
| Self-hosted VPS | Managed (our Starter) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | $96 ($8 × 12) | $50/year |
| Backups | $24 | $0 (included) |
| Domain | $12 | $12 |
| SSL | $0 | $0 |
| Cash total | $132 | $62 |
| Your time | ~6 hours | ~15 minutes |
At the small end, managed hosting is genuinely cheaper in cash and in hours. That flips as you scale: ten blogs on one VPS is one server bill, while ten blogs on managed hosting is a bigger plan — ours is $12/month for ten, which is still less than most single VPS instances, but the gap narrows.
How to pick
Choose managed if you want to write rather than administer, you value an evening at more than a few dollars, or you know you will not do the patching.
Choose self-hosted if you want root, you are running other things on the same box, or you actively want to learn server administration. Our managed vs self-hosted comparison goes deeper, including the cases where we are the wrong answer.
FAQ
Is Ghost free?
Ghost is free and open-source software, so there is no licence fee. You still pay to host it — either a monthly fee to a managed provider, or the cost of a server you run yourself. Budget $5–15 per month either way.
What is the cheapest way to host a Ghost blog?
For a single blog, a managed plan at the low end is usually cheapest overall once your own time is counted — our Starter plan is $5 per month, or $50 per year. A self-hosted VPS has a similar server cost but adds backup storage and several hours of setup and maintenance.
Do I need to pay extra for SSL on Ghost?
No. Let's Encrypt certificates are free, and any competent host issues and renews them automatically at no cost. We include them on every plan. If a host charges for basic SSL, that is a reason to look elsewhere.
How much does it cost to run multiple Ghost blogs?
It depends entirely on whether your host makes you jump a tier. We charge $8 per month for three sites and $12 for ten, and additional sites can be added to any plan for $2 per month each without changing plan.
Are there hidden costs in Ghost hosting?
The two that catch people out are email delivery and backups. Ghost needs a transactional email provider for newsletters, which is a separate bill everywhere, and some hosts charge for backups as an add-on. Check both before comparing monthly prices.
Ready to skip the setup? See our plans — a site is live about a minute after your domain resolves, and you can bring a domain you already own.