Memberful vs Ghost
Side-by-side comparison of Memberful and Ghost.
Sell memberships directly from your own site
Open-source publishing platform built for serious creators
What they are
Memberful
Memberful is a membership platform that lets creators sell paid subscriptions, gated content, and newsletters without moving their audience to a third-party hub. It integrates tightly with WordPress and connects to Stripe for payments, so creators keep their brand and their customer relationships. The flat monthly fee plus a small transaction cut makes costs predictable, though high-volume creators should do the math carefully.
Ghost
Ghost is an independent publishing platform that combines a CMS, email newsletter tool, and membership system in one place. It is used by independent writers, journalists, and media companies who want to own their audience without relying on third-party platforms. The open-source core can be self-hosted for free, while Ghost Pro handles hosting at a monthly fee. The tradeoff is that it is more opinionated than WordPress and has a steeper learning curve for non-technical users.
if you need monetization and email marketing. It has a usable free tier to start with.
- +Payments go directly through your own Stripe account, so you own the relationship
- +Strong WordPress integration for gating posts and pages natively
- +Supports multiple membership tiers, gift memberships, and free trials
if you need hosting and monetization. It has a usable free tier to start with.
- +No platform cut on membership revenue, unlike Substack
- +Built-in email newsletter delivery included on paid plans
- +Clean, distraction-free editor focused on writing
Which to choose
Memberful and Ghost both cover monetization, email marketing, so this is a real either-or for some teams. The right pick depends on which one's wider feature set and pricing fit how you work.
Read the full reviews for Memberful and Ghost.
Pricing checked 3 Jun 2026.