How much does Ghost hosting cost? 👻
Tags: ghost, hosting, writing, career
Published: 2021-02-19 18:33:13

---
title: How much does Ghost hosting cost? 👻
published: true
date: 2021-02-12 00:15:00 UTC
tags: ghost, hosting, writing, career
canonical_url: https://www.benjaminrancourt.ca/how-much-does-ghost-hosting-cost
cover_image: https://www.benjaminrancourt.ca/temp/how-much-does-ghost-hosting-cost.2000.jpg
---
I have a disclamer for you: it does not costs me anything actually to have a **Ghost** instance. As I wrote in some previous posts, I use Ghost primarily for its editor and its [Content API](https://ghost.org/docs/content-api/). Coupled with [Eleventy](https://www.11ty.dev/), my website is generated from the ground up every time I write a new blog post.

Even if this solution does not cost me money, it costs me a more precious currency: **time**. The time to code how I want my website to be generated. If I want to do my other projects, maybe I should be more careful with my time. 🙈

So, I was wondering, how much would it cost me to use only a Ghost instance hosted somewhere? Let's find out!

## [Ghost.org](https://ghost.org/pricing/)

I now remember why I was looking to find a cheaper alternative to host my blogs... The first plan, named _Basic_, starts at **36 USD per month**! 😱 It comes with all the features of Ghost, with a maximum of:

- 100k views per month
- 2 staff users
- and 1000 members.

When paying annually, Ghost team offers a 20% discount. So it would cost 29 USD per month for an annual cost of **345 USD**. 🤢

For personal blogs, like mine, it is really not sustainable. For their defense; Ghost is marketed for professional bloggers. Since everybody has to start blogging before they become a professional, it would make sense to offer a smaller plan with fewer features for newcomers, right? 🤔

Lucky for me, I found a solution by hosting my blog on [DigitalPress](https://www.digitalpress.blog/).

## [DigitalPress](https://www.digitalpress.blog/pricing)
DigitalPress offers a free plan, but it is supported by ads. If you want to remove them, you need to get their _Starter_ plan, which costs around 20 CAD per month.

So if you want to know if Ghost is the right platform for you, I recommend starting here as you can easily get a blog up and running in a couple of minutes, and most importantly, for free. 💸

But, if you are an active blogger (or use a lot of images), you will quickly exceed their 1 GB data limit. You may need to decide quickly whether you want to upgrade or find a new hosting platform for your passion. ❤️‍🔥

## Others hosting platforms
On their recently published article _[7 Best Ghost Publishing Hosting Platforms for Your Business](https://geekflare.com/ghost-hosting-platforms/)_, Geekflare also lists five other alternatives that you could look up if you want.

Personally, I will add here two of these hosting platforms that I want to check someday:

- [FastComet](https://www.fastcomet.com/ghost-hosting), a CPanel shared hosting for 10 USD per month
- [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/), the renowned company, offers a [one-click droplet](https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/ghost) for 5 USD per month

As part of the **[DigitalOcean App Platform Hackathon](https://dev.to/devteam/announcing-the-digitalocean-app-platform-hackathon-on-dev-2i1k)** challenge, I recently created an account on DigitalOcean for my _[What we are watching project](https://dev.to/ranb2002/what-we-are-watching-4p1j)_. So there is a good chance that I will explore the platform more in the near futur and maybe, who knows, switch my hosting platform!

If you have use Ghost personally, where do you host it? 👻

> Psst. _I you want to try DigitalOcean products, you can use my_ [_ **referral link** _](https://m.do.co/c/e79694c46dfc) _and get $100 in credits over 60 days. In return, I will get $25 once you have spent the same amount. It's a win-win situation. Thank you! 😉_