Best Platform for SEO - Ghost or Substack?
Which is better for SEO in 2025—Ghost or Substack? Compare platforms, visibility, and tools for creators building a brand or newsletter.
It always starts the same way. You have an idea. A sharp take, a niche insight, maybe a worldview that doesn’t quite fit the algorithmic churn of Instagram or TikTok. You start writing, you get a few shares, maybe even a Substack shoutout or two. The dopamine hits are delicious. You’re building something.
But six months in, you Google yourself. Or worse—your project. Nothing. Nada. Page 7, if you're lucky, somewhere between an expired Petfinder listing and a PDF from 2012. Worse yet, some random Reddit post is outranking you.
You’ve been publishing steadily, hitting “send” every Thursday at 7 a.m., watching the open rates climb. But outside the walled garden of Substack, it’s like you don’t exist. All your effort lives on yourname.substack.com—a subdomain that Google treats like a rented storage unit: fine for temporary housing, but no one’s recommending it in a Zillow listing.
This is the moment many digital writers face. Do I stick with Substack and its cozy built-in community and newsletter ease? Or do I graduate to something that lets me own my corner of the internet—domain, data, SEO juice and all?
And this is where Ghost vs Substack for SEO becomes more than just a tech choice. It becomes a philosophical question: are you building a brand inside someone else’s ecosystem, or planting your own digital flag and telling Google, “Hey, over here—I exist”?
For creators trying to future-proof their work, this decision is no longer niche. It's mainstream. Substack has changed the newsletter game by making it free, fast, and social. But in doing so, it’s also made some quiet tradeoffs—tradeoffs that Google’s search crawlers don’t ignore.
Meanwhile, Ghost is that quiet friend who’s not at the party but owns the building. It doesn’t promise virality. It promises autonomy. It lets you use your own domain, design your site how you want, and structure your content so search engines actually find it. It costs more, yes. But what you’re paying for is leverage. Control. Freedom.
So if you're reading this because you’re one browser tab away from hitting “Export” on Substack and moving to Ghost, buckle up. This isn’t just another SaaS comparison. It’s a full breakdown—technical, philosophical, and a little petty—of what each platform gets right and where they fail your long-term strategy.
This is the SEO creator’s guide to choosing sides in the new publishing war.
SEO Showdown: Why Ghost Is Built for Google
Let’s be honest: if you're even thinking about Ghost, it's probably because someone on Twitter or Reddit whispered the magic words: “SEO control.” They’re not wrong. Ghost is a publishing engine that wears technical optimization like a tailored suit. Meanwhile, Substack... well, it shows up to a black-tie gala in sweatpants. Charming, sure. But Google isn’t impressed.
Ghost: The SEO Purist’s Playground
Ghost doesn’t just “support SEO.” It obsesses over it. It gives you everything Google wants: custom canonical URLs, metadata fields, clean semantic HTML, fast-loading themes, built-in sitemaps, and even structured data for articles. No plugins. No hacks. Just the raw tools a site needs to rank.
More importantly, it runs on your own domain—yourname.com—not yourname.ghost.io or someone else's platform. And if you self-host Ghost (which the brave few still do), you get even more freedom to fine-tune performance, server speed, and design for SEO dominance.
Want to change the title tag of a post to something different from the headline? Done. Need to update the meta description for a better CTR? One click. Prefer short slugs or custom URLs with keywords? No problem. Ghost’s admin interface gives you that fine-grained control most platforms bury—or outright ignore.
Substack: A Social Writing Tool With SEO as an Afterthought
Substack, on the other hand, feels like it’s optimized for people, not bots. That sounds noble. Until you realize Google is your audience’s first gatekeeper.
Out of the box, Substack hosts all your posts on a Substack subdomain. Yes, you can pay a one-time $50 fee to connect a custom domain now, and they’ve improved that flow—but it’s still more complicated than it should be, and some writers report spotty implementation (like inconsistent redirects or indexing issues). It’s a bit like bolting a turbocharger onto a bicycle.
Even with a custom domain, Substack’s backend gives you very little SEO control:
- No native field for meta descriptions
- No editing of title tags
- No alt text fields for images
- No way to assign canonical tags (it auto-generates them… pointing to Substack)
- No sitemap customization
And don’t even get us started on performance scores or Core Web Vitals. While Ghost boasts lightweight, responsive themes and even AMP support for faster mobile pages, Substack sites are heavier, less customizable, and harder to speed-optimize.
The Cumulative Effect
These limitations may not matter when you're sending a weekly note to 500 loyal readers. But when you’re trying to build a public-facing archive that attracts organic traffic, these gaps start to hurt. Ghost’s posts rank. Substack’s rarely do—unless you’re already famous or your content gets picked up by another platform with stronger domain authority.
There’s also the issue of discoverability within Google News or Top Stories carousels. Ghost’s structured data and RSS feeds play nice with Google’s news inclusion standards. Substack... not so much. It’s optimized more for internal discovery—via its recommendation engine—than external search.
Ghost vs Substack SEO Feature Table
| Feature | Ghost (Pro/Self-Hosted) | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Domain | ✅ Full Support | ✅ With $50 setup fee |
| SEO Metadata Control | ✅ Full Access | ❌ Limited |
| Canonical Tags | ✅ Editable | ❌ Auto-set to Substack |
| Sitemap Support | ✅ Built-in XML sitemap | ❌ No control |
| AMP Support | ✅ Native (optional) | ❌ Not available |
| Structured Data | ✅ Schema.org JSON-LD | ❌ Minimal markup |
| Mobile Speed Optimization | ✅ High | ⚠️ Variable |
| URL/Slug Control | ✅ Customizable | ❌ Auto-generated |
Substack’s Ecosystem vs Ghost’s Open Web
If Ghost is the stoic craftsman building his cabin in the woods—precision tools, zero distractions—then Substack is the bustling co-living space in Brooklyn. Everyone’s writing. Everyone’s recommending each other. There’s kombucha in the fridge and a shared Slack thread called “Writer Therapy.”
And let’s be honest: that’s kind of the point.
Substack is more than just a place to write and email. It’s building a platform—a verticalized social web of writers, readers, and revenue. If you join Substack, you’re not just launching a newsletter. You’re plugging into an algorithm-lite network where your content can ride someone else’s momentum. That’s magic for discoverability. And it’s exactly what makes Substack so powerful—and limiting.
I personally use both Substack and Ghost.io. I have a successful Substack—Political Potatoes which focuses on Idaho Politics and use Ghost for my professional work in SEO and Online Reputation Management.
This site runs on Ghost.io.
The Rise of the Walled Garden
Substack has built what Silicon Valley types call a semi-closed ecosystem. Your writing gets recommended by other writers. There’s a “Find New Writers” feed. You can browse by topic. Readers follow your profile like it’s Twitter. You can even comment, “like,” and now publish Notes (a.k.a. Substack’s Twitter clone).
This is brilliant for growth inside Substack. It rewards virality, consistency, and writer-to-writer endorsement. But here’s the kicker: Google doesn’t care.
If your goal is to own your audience, rank your content, and build a brand independent of any platform, Substack starts to feel like a very elegant cage. You're visible to other Substack readers. But to the rest of the internet? You might as well be scribbling in a notebook under your bed.
Ghost, meanwhile, doesn’t have a social layer. It has tools. That’s it. It doesn't recommend you to other writers. It doesn’t curate a feed. It doesn’t play matchmaker with your audience. That can feel like a lonely place at first—until you realize you're playing a different game entirely.
Ghost and the Open Web
Ghost is what happens when you strip everything down to infrastructure. It’s for builders, founders, weirdos, niche experts, and startup newsletters with big ambitions. You want to run your site like a digital magazine? Done. You want custom landing pages, paywalls, e-commerce? Cool. You want to tie it into Webflow or Shopify or Mailgun or whatever email tool you’re obsessed with this month? Go nuts.
And the best part? You’re not locked in. No proprietary ecosystem. No “Substack network.” No platform algorithm to please. Just your content, your design, your URL, and your rules.
It’s like the early days of the blogosphere before social media turned every writer into a content hamster.
What Kind of Growth Do You Want?
Substack is designed for fast growth and shared gravity. You’re part of a rising tide. Ghost is a long game. You own everything, but you also build everything—from your traffic to your trust.
If you’re just starting out and want to test ideas? Substack’s ecosystem might carry you faster. But if you’re already building a brand—or planning to—Ghost sets you up for the kind of visibility that survives algorithm changes, platform bans, and yes, Twitter meltdowns.
Ecosystem Comparison
| Feature | Substack | Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in Recommendations | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Discoverability Feed | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Notes / Social Tools | ✅ Twitter-like Notes | ❌ None |
| Writer Leaderboards | ✅ Public rankings & growth data | ❌ Private site only |
| Community Interactions | ✅ Comments, likes, follows | ⚠️ Requires integrations |
| Platform Lock-in Risk | ⚠️ High (limited export control) | ✅ Low (you own everything) |
| Brand Independence | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ Full control |
Domains and Data: Who Owns What?
Here’s a not-so-fun fact: if you’re not publishing on your own domain, you’re not really building SEO equity. You’re building theirs.
This is where the conversation around Ghost vs Substack for SEO takes a sharp turn into digital real estate. Because a custom domain isn’t just a vanity URL—it’s the foundation of your search engine footprint. It's your brand’s mortgage, not a lease on someone else’s land.
Substack’s Custom Domain: Better, But Still Boxed In
Let’s give Substack credit where it’s due. As of late 2023, they began offering custom domain support for a one-time $50 fee. This means you can publish at yourname.com instead of yourname.substack.com, and finally start building real domain authority.
But there are caveats.
Setting it up isn't exactly user-friendly. You have to manage your DNS settings, hope Substack’s servers propagate cleanly, and even then—analytics are basic, sitemap access is limited, and canonical tags are still often pointing back to Substack’s infrastructure. So yes, it’s better than it was. But no, it’s not Ghost-level control.
Also, because Substack is so tightly integrated with its own ecosystem, even with a custom domain, you’re still playing by its rules. You don’t get full access to server-side code. You can’t build out custom pages or modify core SEO files. And if Substack ever folds (or pivots—looking at you, Medium), your domain might outlive your content.
Ghost: The Full Deed and the Keys
Ghost is built with the assumption that you own everything—your domain, your content, your data, and your email list. Whether you're self-hosting or using Ghost(Pro), everything is routed through your brand’s URL, and all the Google juice flows straight to you.
You’re not just building SEO equity; you’re accumulating compounding authority. Every backlink, every Google index, every embedded tweet, every mention—it's all strengthening your site, not some platform.
Ghost also gives you complete access to your analytics (integrates easily with Google Analytics 4 or Plausible), lets you control your XML sitemap, and makes redirects, structured data, and metadata editing part of its core admin UI.
In the battle of platform vs publisher, Ghost tips the balance hard toward the publisher.
The Data Dilemma
And then there’s the email list.
Substack lets you export your subscribers. So do Ghost. But Ghost makes it easier to actually do something with them. It integrates with everything—Mailgun, Zapier, ConvertKit, Webhooks—so you can automate, segment, A/B test, or even trigger campaigns based on behavior. You’re not locked into a platform-defined newsletter strategy.
With Substack, your email list exists inside their system. They’re not stopping you from exporting, but their UX is clearly designed to keep everything in-house. That’s fine until you want to do something weird or creative or commercial or advanced—and then you hit a wall.
Domain + Data Ownership Table
| Feature | Substack | Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Domain Support | ✅ $50 one-time setup | ✅ Full native support |
| Full Domain Control | ⚠️ Limited (no server/file access) | ✅ Full access (esp. self-hosted) |
| Email List Ownership | ✅ Exportable | ✅ Exportable + Full integration |
| Analytics Access | ⚠️ Basic (Substack dashboard only) | ✅ Full (GA4, Plausible, etc.) |
| SEO Metadata Control | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ Complete |
| Sitemap / Robots.txt | ❌ Not editable | ✅ Full control |
| Redirect Management | ❌ No redirect tools | ✅ Built-in (301s, slugs, etc.) |
Newsletter Freedom: Substack’s Big Email Advantage
Let’s say you’ve hit it big. Ten thousand subscribers. Your ideas are flowing. Your readers are loyal. You finally feel like this could be something more than a side hustle. Then you check your Ghost(Pro) plan and realize you’re about to get hit with a $99/month invoice—and that doesn’t even cover your email sending service.
This is the part where Substack smirks, hands you a LaCroix, and says, “Hey. It’s on us.”
Substack’s Killer Feature: Free Email for Everyone
It’s true—and it's powerful. Substack lets you send unlimited emails to unlimited subscribers for free. You can have 50 readers or 50,000, and you won’t pay a dime unless you monetize through their platform. Even then, the only cost is a 10% cut of your paid subscriptions.
That’s it. No third-party email tools. No Mailgun API keys. No email deliverability settings to configure. Substack handles it all—email queues, unsubscribe links, compliance, even spam filtering.
For creators focused on content (not configs), it’s a dream. You just write. Hit send. Done.
For folks migrating from legacy platforms like Mailchimp, it feels like someone finally broke the cost-per-send model wide open. And for writers operating on tight margins, it’s often the difference between starting a newsletter or shelving the idea entirely.
Ghost’s Reality: Power Comes at a Price
Ghost, on the other hand, charges you based on features, usage, and audience size. Even the lowest paid plan at $9/month has email-sending limitations. To run a serious publication with 10,000+ subscribers, you’re likely looking at $99–$199/month, not including your email service provider’s fees if you go the self-hosted route.
That said, Ghost gives you complete control over your email strategy:
- Full HTML and markdown editing
- Custom templates
- Segmented lists
- Automated flows with integrations
- Detailed analytics and open-rate insights (via third-party tools)
- Ability to plug into CRMs, e-commerce platforms, or marketing funnels
It’s less “type and send” and more “build your own email empire.”
You choose your email backend (Mailgun, Postmark, etc.), which means you own the deliverability, sender reputation, and performance. It’s more complex, yes. But it’s also more powerful.
The Tradeoff: Ease vs Scale
If your newsletter is your main thing—and you want to grow it without worrying about backend stuff—Substack wins. No question.
But if email is just one piece of a broader content strategy (e.g., blog + newsletter + paid course + private membership site), Ghost gives you the infrastructure to scale across channels without ever being limited by platform design choices.
Substack’s free plan is generous. Ghost’s flexibility is liberating. The question is: are you building a list or a business?
Email Delivery & Cost Comparison
| Feature | Substack | Ghost(Pro) |
|---|---|---|
| Free Email Sends | ✅ Unlimited | ❌ Limited by plan |
| Subscriber Limit (Free) | ✅ Unlimited | ❌ Paid plans only |
| Email Editor | ⚠️ Basic (no HTML) | ✅ Advanced (custom templates) |
| Automation & Segmentation | ❌ Not available | ✅ With integrations |
| Analytics & A/B Testing | ⚠️ Basic insights | ✅ Third-party tools supported |
| Paid Subscription Support | ✅ Built-in | ✅ Native or via Stripe/Memberstack |
| Monetization Fee | 10% Substack fee | 0% (you own Stripe account) |
Price Comparison: Free Isn’t Always Free
Substack wants to make one thing very clear: it’s free. No hosting fees. No subscription tiers. No nickel-and-diming for extra storage, posts, or email sends. You sign up, start writing, and boom—you’re live.
But like all things labeled “free” on the internet, the question isn’t what you’re paying. It’s what you’re giving up.
Substack: The Free Ride With a Toll Booth at the End
Substack doesn’t charge to host your newsletter or your podcast (yes, it now supports native podcast publishing, complete with Spotify and YouTube integration). It even lets you host live video podcast episodes directly from the dashboard. You can publish text posts, audio, and video, send them to your email list, and never touch your wallet.
That is, until you monetize.
Once you flip on paid subscriptions, Substack takes 10% of your revenue. So if you’re earning $10,000/month from paid readers, Substack skims $1,000 right off the top. Stripe takes its standard 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction too. Suddenly, your “free” platform is costing you nearly 13% in processing and platform fees.
Not to mention: you’re locked into their system. You can’t avoid the fee. You can’t swap Stripe accounts. You can’t run special offers through external tools or even control your checkout flow.
And if you decide to leave? Well, you can export your email list—but not your customer billing data. That stays with Substack.
Ghost: Pay to Play, But You Keep What You Kill
Ghost flips the model on its head. You pay upfront, either monthly or annually, based on how many staff users, subscribers, and emails you send. Pricing for Ghost(Pro) starts at $9/month for the Starter plan, but serious newsletters typically land in the $29–$99/month range (or more for massive lists).
And yes, you pay separately for email delivery through Mailgun or another provider, unless you go fully self-hosted and roll your own email stack.
But here’s what you get in return:
- 0% platform fee—all subscription revenue goes directly into your Stripe account.
- Full control over offers, checkout flows, and upsells.
- Native support for memberships, one-time payments, and gated content.
- Option to create multiple products (newsletters, premium blogs, private communities).
- And crucially: you’re not just hosting a newsletter. You’re building a fully functioning media site that Google can crawl, readers can share, and you can scale into... whatever comes next.
Ghost is also automation-friendly. Want to use Zapier or Make.com to sync with a CRM, trigger workflows, or run your AI-powered marketing machine in the background? Go for it. Substack doesn’t support that. It’s a closed system by design—streamlined, sure, but restrictive if you need your stack to evolve.
Real Talk: What It Costs to Grow
Let’s say you’re a creator with 10,000 email subscribers. Here’s how the numbers might shake out:
| Feature / Plan | Substack | Ghost(Pro) + Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Platform Cost | $0 | $99 (mid-tier plan) |
| Email Delivery | Free | ~$20–$40 (via Mailgun) |
| Monetization Fee | 10% of revenue | 0% |
| Revenue on $10K/mo | You keep ~$8,700 | You keep ~$9,700 |
| Podcast Hosting | ✅ Built-in (audio/video) | ❌ Requires integration |
| Live Podcast Features | ✅ Yes | ❌ Not supported |
| Automation Tools | ❌ Not supported | ✅ Zapier, Make.com |
It’s a case of “free until it isn’t” vs “pay upfront but keep the upside.” And what makes the difference isn’t just your size—it’s your ambition.
If your goal is to stay small and avoid the headache of managing tools and costs, Substack is a generous, frictionless option. If your goal is to build a scalable, search-optimized, monetizable media brand? Ghost pays off fast.
Community vs Control: Building a Brand or Owning It?
There’s a subtle pressure that comes with being a Substack writer. It starts with your name at the top. Then your face. Then the profile badge, the followers, the “Recommended by Other Writers” list. Before you know it, you’re not just writing a newsletter—you’re performing a persona.
And that’s by design.
Substack: Personal Brand in the Spotlight
Substack is built for public-facing creators. It nudges you toward being a character in your own story. It wants you to have a recognizable headshot. It encourages real names, real bios, real networks of people recommending and amplifying each other.
If you’re looking to build a strong EEAT signal (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) under Google’s increasingly strict guidelines—this can be a plus. Substack lets you clearly demonstrate who you are, what your credentials are, and how readers respond to you. That’s powerful social proof.
It’s also incredibly effective for subject-matter experts: doctors, lawyers, journalists, founders—people whose personal reputation is the product. Think “Dr. Peter Attia” or “Matt Taibbi.” You’re the brand. Substack gives you a platform that reinforces it with every post, comment, and mention.
But what if you’re not looking to be seen?
Ghost: Anonymous, Private, and Intentional
Ghost doesn’t care who you are. It’s the introvert at the SEO party—quietly publishing 10x content under a pseudonym, ranking #1, and vanishing back into the ether.
If you’re operating under a pen name, reporting on sensitive topics, building a niche publication, or simply want your work to speak louder than your selfie... Ghost is your friend.
You can skip the author bio. Disable comments. Lock posts behind member gates. You don’t need to publish anything on a schedule or submit to an algorithm. You control your identity and your exposure.
This also makes Ghost ideal for collaborative brands. Want to build a media site run by a team? A publication where posts don’t carry personal bylines? A pseudonymous project with a mission-first voice? Ghost makes all of that not only possible—but natural.
And yes, it’s still compatible with EEAT—especially when paired with consistent high-quality content, well-structured pages, and expert-level topical depth. You just won’t get the baked-in author profile features Substack provides.
Which Identity Strategy Wins?
This is where “community” and “control” come into conflict.
Substack wants your readers to follow you. Ghost wants them to follow your site. Substack encourages networked virality. Ghost rewards strategic independence. Substack is a newsletter with a writer on stage. Ghost is a publication with editorial vision.
Neither is wrong. But if you’re trying to build a long-term SEO play that doesn’t rely on constant social promotion or writer-to-writer endorsements, Ghost’s anonymity and modularity offer you more paths to scale.
Identity and Exposure Spectrum
| Feature | Substack | Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| Author Identity | ✅ Required / Profile-driven | ✅ Optional / Anonymous supported |
| Public Writer Directory | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Follower Model (social layer) | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Not supported |
| Comments and Engagement | ✅ Native | ⚠️ Third-party integration needed |
| Team Publishing Support | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ Yes (multi-author ready) |
| EEAT Potential | ✅ Strong via personal profile | ✅ Strong via brand + content |
Migrating from Substack to Ghost
So you've made the decision. You want more control, better SEO, maybe even a full-on media site. But your writing, your readers, your revenue—they're all tied up in Substack’s ecosystem.
Good news: you can move to Ghost without losing everything you’ve built. But you need to do it carefully—especially if you care about traffic, search rankings, and not breaking your readers' bookmarks.
Let’s walk through what the move looks like in the real world.
Step 1: Export Everything from Substack
Substack lets you export:
- Your email list (CSV)
- Your posts (in HTML or Markdown)
- Your subscribers (including free and paid)
- Your comments and engagement data (optional, though limited)
Go to your Settings > Import/Export, and hit that big, anxiety-inducing download button. You’ll get a zip file with all your content. Save it somewhere safe.
🔧 Note: You won’t be able to export payment data (like credit card info for paid subscribers), so you’ll need to ask paying readers to re-subscribe through your new Ghost payment system once you migrate.
Step 2: Set Up Ghost (Hosted or Self-Hosted)
You’ve got two options:
- Ghost(Pro) – Fast, fully managed hosting with tech support. Costs more, but great for creators who don’t want to mess with servers.
- Self-hosted Ghost – DIY option for full control (and ultimate geek points). You’ll need a VPS (like DigitalOcean), a domain, and a solid understanding of CLI tools.
Either way, once it’s installed, you can start customizing your site to replicate (or completely rethink) your Substack setup:
- Set up your custom domain (
yourname.com) - Choose a theme that mimics the minimalist Substack feel—or go big with a magazine-style layout
- Add static pages like About, Contact, Media Kit, etc.
- Configure SEO settings globally and per post
Step 3: Import Your Content
Ghost’s admin dashboard has an Import Content feature. Upload your Markdown or HTML files. If you’re migrating a large archive, consider formatting posts in bulk and using Ghost’s API or the Ghost CLI.
Set your publish dates to match your original post dates (critical for preserving SEO history). Review post slugs—Ghost lets you customize them to match the exact URL structure from Substack if needed.
Step 4: Rebuild Your Audience
This is the emotional part. You need to tell your readers you’re moving. Don’t just vanish.
- Send a final Substack post explaining the shift and why it benefits them (more control, better features, new things coming)
- Ask paying subscribers to re-subscribe via your new Ghost checkout
- Set up an email opt-in page on your new site and promote it across your socials
💡 Tip: Create a custom migration offer—something like “Founding Member” perks for anyone who signs up in the first 30 days after launch.
Step 5: Handle Redirects (Preserve SEO Juice)
This part is essential if your Substack had any traction in Google.
If you were using a custom domain on Substack, you’ll want to redirect each old URL to its new Ghost counterpart. Use Substack’s redirect tool to create 301 redirects—or, if they don’t support custom redirects for your setup, use your domain registrar or CDN (like Cloudflare) to set up page-level rules.
If you didn’t use a custom domain (still on yourname.substack.com), you’re out of luck on redirects—but you can still preserve internal link structure and try to reclaim backlinks manually via outreach.
Step 6: Re-Index and Monitor
Once you’re live:
- Submit your Ghost site’s sitemap to Google Search Console
- Monitor crawl errors and indexing stats
- Rebuild internal links (Ghost makes this easy with relative URLs)
- Run speed tests and SEO audits to optimize performance
You’re now live on your own platform, with full SEO control and an open path to evolve.
- ✅ Export subscribers & posts
- ✅ Set up Ghost site + theme
- ✅ Import content and configure slugs
- ✅ Notify readers and relaunch
- ✅ Set up 301 redirects
- ✅ Submit sitemap + monitor SEO
Why Creators Are Leaving Substack for Ghost in 2025
It used to be taboo to say you were leaving Substack. Like admitting at a dinner party that you unsubscribed from Netflix or bailed on Apple. But that’s changed—fast.
Across Reddit threads, Discord communities, and newsletters themselves, a clear pattern has emerged: creators are quietly—or sometimes loudly—packing up and moving their work to Ghost. And not just for aesthetics or novelty. This is about values, autonomy, and strategy.
“Substack was great—until it wasn’t.”
Many of these exits were triggered by platform decisions that didn’t sit right. For others, the limitations became too heavy to ignore.
“I just want to write a good technical newsletter, and Substack is no longer the most appropriate platform on which to do that.”
—Eric Matthes, Mostly Python (mostlypython.com)
Matthes left after Substack shifted its focus toward becoming a social media ecosystem. He wasn’t alone in feeling that Substack’s Notes and “culture war” debates were crowding out its core identity as a writer’s platform.
“With Substack’s announcement that they will not be removing Pro-Nazi content from their platform it seems once again that I am forced to look for an alternative.”
—Alex Hyett, The Curious Engineer (alexhyett.com)
Hyett’s departure, like many others, came on the heels of Substack’s refusal to remove extremist content—a decision that sparked backlash from dozens of writers and prompted a growing exodus.
“I had a conversation with Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie... that left me very skeptical that there will be meaningful change at Substack with him at the wheel.”
—Molly White, Citation Needed (citationneeded.news)
White migrated her newsletter to a self-hosted Ghost instance, detailing every step of the transition—and why platform ethics mattered more than convenience.
“Ethics trump metrics every goddamn day.”
—Audrey Watters, Second Breakfast (2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com)
Watters’ departure was pointed. Her blog had long chronicled ed-tech hype cycles, and her stance was clear: values come before virality.
Even high-profile tech journalist Casey Newton, founder of Platformer, made the leap from Substack to Ghost—highlighting his discomfort with Substack’s monetization structure and lack of editorial boundaries.
From Casual Creator to Digital Publisher
What these exits reveal is that Substack is built for casual creators. It’s perfect if your goal is to write, grow an audience, and maybe earn a few thousand dollars a month. But once you start thinking like a publisher, Substack starts to feel like a beautiful cage.
Ghost, by contrast, offers something deeper: freedom to scale, ethically and structurally.
You can:
- Own your domain, data, and payments
- Run newsletters, blogs, podcasts, memberships, and even e-commerce on the same site
- Build anonymously or as a team
- Connect Zapier, Make.com, and dozens of other tools
- Decide your own community guidelines and monetization strategy
And that’s why some creators are leaving. Not because they hate Substack. But because they’ve outgrown it.
Final Word: Strategy Over Platform
The showdown between Ghost and Substack isn’t really about features anymore. It’s about focus.
Substack is a publishing playground—an excellent one. It’s fast, social, and free. You can build a loyal following and earn real money without touching a line of code or worrying about SEO schemas or metadata fields. It’s a phenomenal tool—until you start needing more.
Ghost, by contrast, is quiet. It doesn’t recommend you to other writers. It doesn’t have a built-in feed, or social boosts, or algorithmic engagement hacks. What it gives you instead is something more valuable: ownership.
You control your domain. Your design. Your structure. Your traffic. Your integrations. Your monetization strategy. Your long-term SEO footprint.
So don’t ask “which is better?”
Ask:
- Do I want a personal brand or a standalone brand?
- Do I care about discoverability now—or search equity later?
- Am I trying to build a following—or an independent publishing business?
- Do I want to write a newsletter—or run a media site?
- Can I afford to give up 10% of my revenue forever—or is that money better spent on infrastructure I own?
Because in the end, tools don’t build empires. Strategies do. And whether you're building a humble one-person blog or a full-scale publication, the platform you choose should match your ambition—not just your inbox.