[wlesieutre]

I remember when they launched with a $5/month hosting plan, then when they raised it to $10. Just looked at the pricing page and the minimum is now $36/month (or $29/month billed yearly). That's some serious sticker shock.

Is it that much better than say, Squarespace?

[Sophistifunk]

The thing is, it doesn't matter if it is that much better than Squarespace or WordPress, that's just way too much money for a personal blog, even before the conversion to AUD I'd have to face.

[kup0]

These were my thoughts exactly. Maybe it just hasn't made business sense for them to host cheaper plans, since it's available to self-host. But you're right, even against competitors (Squarespace) it's quite a bit more expensive. Not sure what justifies such a gap.

[wlesieutre]

At one point it looks like they'd even jacked it up to $79/month minimum, and the $29/month basic plan was added since then [1]. I guess that didn't sell well.

I have no experience with squarespace (just hear about them in podcasts), but I know they have pretty nice templates, they host blogs, stores (digital and physical), podcasts, and probably more, priced at $12 or $18/month.

From a cursory glance through Ghost's site I'm not seeing what value they bring to the table that makes it worth more. Reeeeaaaallly good blog, I guess?

[1] https://forum.ghost.org/t/300-increase-in-ghost-pro-packages...

[WesleyLivesay]

I am fortunate enough to be on the $10 plan, but given how little traffic my site gets cutting it in half with the smallest DO box would still be nice.

[wlesieutre]

You could move from Ghost Pro to another Ghost provider without being completely manual. A quick google turned up FastComet at $2.95/month. Page claims 1-click Ghost installation, easy Ghost upgrade service, and daily/weekly Ghost backups.

https://www.fastcomet.com/ghost-hosting

Yay open source!

[penagwin]

You could even go with vultr or ovh and cut it even lower.