Buttondown vs Ghost
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Buttondown and Ghost, verified . Buttondown is primarily email marketing; Ghost is primarily content marketing.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Buttondown
- Free
Up to 100 subscribers with markdown editor, custom-domain sending, and hosted archives.
Free - $9 add-ons
Pay per feature; this bundle is illustrative of the $9 add-on tier.
$9/mo - $29 add-ons
Pay per feature; this bundle is illustrative of the $29 add-on tier.
$29/mo - $79 add-ons
Pay per feature; this bundle is illustrative of the $79 add-on tier.
$79/mo
Ghost
- Starter
Personal publishing on Ghost(Pro), billed yearly
$18/mo - Publisher
Paid subscriptions, custom themes, integrations
$29/mo - Business
Higher limits, priority support, early access
$199/mo - Custom
Enterprise: unlimited members, dedicated IP, SLA
Custom
Limits at the entry paid tier
Compares $9 add-ons (Buttondown) against Starter (Ghost). Both are the lowest-priced non-free, non-custom plan on each side.
| Limit | Buttondown | Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Custom | 1,000 members |
| Emails / month | · | Unlimited |
| Team seats | · | 1 |
When Buttondown wins
- Independent writers and indie creators running a paid newsletter.
- Privacy-minded operators who want to avoid tracking pixels.
- Markdown-native authors who prefer plain text over WYSIWYG bloat.
Where Buttondown is the wrong fit
- High-volume senders pushing multiple campaigns per day.
- E-commerce teams needing deep behavioral automation and segmentation.
- Marketing teams that want a single flat tier covering every feature.
When Ghost wins
- Independent publishers who want to own their stack and keep migration optionality
- Paid-newsletter operators trying to avoid Substack's 10% revenue share at scale
- Publications that need staff seats, custom themes, and a real CMS rather than just an email tool
Where Ghost is the wrong fit
- Hobbyists who refuse to pay anything ever; Substack or Buttondown's free tiers fit better
- Podcast-first creators; Ghost is text and email native, not an audio platform
- Teams that need deep CRM, lead scoring, or marketing automation; this is a publishing tool, not a marketing-automation suite
Common questions
- Is Buttondown cheaper than Ghost?
- At the entry tier, Buttondown starts at Free versus Ghost at $18/mo. Buttondown is cheaper at the entry. Pricing scales differently above that, so check the full plan grid.
- Does Buttondown or Ghost have a free plan?
- Only Buttondown has a permanent free plan. Ghost only offers a free trial.
- Are Buttondown and Ghost in the same category?
- No. Buttondown is primarily a email marketing tool; Ghost is primarily a content marketing tool. They overlap on use case but sit in different primary categories, so the comparison is between adjacent tools rather than direct competitors.
- Which has more plans, Buttondown or Ghost?
- Both Buttondown and Ghost ship 4 plans. Tier counts match; the differentiation is in features and pricing structure rather than tier ladder depth.
- Where can I see alternatives to Buttondown or Ghost?
- Each tool has a dedicated alternatives page on TierGauge with ranked options and verified pricing: /alternatives/buttondown for Buttondown and /alternatives/ghost for Ghost. Alternatives are derived from each tool's editor-flagged competitors plus same-category tools we track.
Buttondown: https://buttondown.com/pricing · Ghost: https://ghost.org/pricing/
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.