ghost vs kit: which is best? [2026 review]
Ghost vs. Kit: The Business Model Confusion That's Killing Your Growth
You're standing at a crossroads that most creators never see coming.
On one side, there's Ghost with its beautiful publishing tools. On the other, Kit with its powerful email automation.
But here's what nobody's telling you: you're not choosing between platforms.
You're choosing between two completely different business models.
The Fundamental Difference
Ghost transforms you into a publisher, starting at $9 monthly with zero revenue cuts.
This platform treats your content like it matters. Every article you write gets optimized for search engines automatically. Your site loads faster than almost anything else online.
The writing experience feels professional, almost literary. You'll rank in Google, build authority, and create something that feels substantial.
The reality check? Ghost's newsletter features are basic at best. Email sequences are limited. Automation is practically nonexistent. If your business depends on sophisticated email marketing, you'll feel constrained.
Kit turns you into a marketer, free for your first 1,000 subscribers, then scaling with usage.
This system was engineered for creators who understand that the money lives in the follow-up. You can build complex automation sequences that nurture prospects for months.
Segmentation lets you speak differently to different audience segments. The monetization options span everything from digital products to sponsorship management.
The limitation? Kit treats content creation as an afterthought.
Your SEO will suffer. Your website won't impress anyone. You're essentially invisible to search engines.
The Revenue Reality Check
Here's where most creators make their biggest mistake: they think they have to choose.
Let's say you're building a business around financial advice.
On Ghost alone, you might attract 3,000 monthly visitors from search, convert 2% to a $15 monthly newsletter, generating $900 monthly recurring revenue.
On Kit alone, you might build sophisticated funnels that convert 8% of your traffic to a $97 course, but you're limited to social media and referral traffic—maybe 500 visitors monthly, generating $388 in course sales.
The math is brutal either way. Ghost gives you traffic but limits conversion sophistication. Kit maximizes conversions but starves you of traffic.
Here's the delivery complication both platforms share: Ghost relies on Mailgun for email delivery, while Kit relies on Sendgrid's infrastructure.
Mailgun excels with Outlook and Yahoo delivery but can struggle with Gmail. Sendgrid has different strengths and weaknesses across email providers.
Neither platform can guarantee optimal delivery across all major email services simultaneously.
This is where Lemon Email changes the equation entirely.
Instead of accepting the limitations of either approach, Lemon integrates with multiple delivery engines—Mailgun, SendGrid, and others—automatically selecting the optimal route for each subscriber's email provider.
Here's How I'd Think About It
If you're building a content business where SEO and organic discovery matter more than email conversion rates, Ghost is probably your answer.
You'll build something that compounds over time through search traffic.
If you're focused on maximizing revenue from your existing audience and email is your primary monetization channel, Kit gives you the tools to do that properly.
But here's what I learned: both approaches leave money on the table because of delivery issues.
If email performance is critical to your business model—if you need every message to actually reach your subscribers because that's where your revenue comes from—then you might want to look at something like Lemon Email instead.
It won't give you Ghost's SEO capabilities or Kit's landing page features. But it will solve the fundamental problem both platforms have: making sure your emails actually get delivered regardless of whether your subscriber uses Gmail, Outlook, or anything else.
The real question is what you're optimizing for.
Long-term organic growth through content, sophisticated email marketing automation, or maximum deliverability and email ROI.
There's no wrong answer.
But there are expensive blind spots in each approach that you should know about before you commit.
