[jmathai]

Before I make a comment I wanted to say I think Ghost is an awesome initiative and hope that it furthers what's already been accomplished by Wordpress.

That being said, I was a bit bummed to see it as a pay only option. I get it, you have to pay bills. Seriously, I get it - we just ditched our consumer product due to this fact.

$5/month is more than I'm willing to pay to try it out. And in reality, it's too much for me to pay even if I like it. That keeps me from trying it out and falling in love with it.

You know what I would pay $5/month for? A blog for my business. But I'll end up installing or signing up on Wordpress because I'm familiar with it. Because I was able to use it for free.

This mentality sucks, I know. Welcome to the consumer Internet.

Edit: I'm not suggesting that they offer a free plan. I wouldn't. I hope they focus sooner than later off the consumer market.

[dkuntz2]

You could still pay that $5/month; just get a cheap VPS or other host that supports Node.js, and run Ghost yourself.

I think Digital Ocean (which has a $5/month plan) has a really simple Ghost installer.

[marban]

I've built a medium.com-like experience for blogging newbies (http://www.postagon.com) and I can tell you that people do indeed pay for it. I think Ghost just needs some time to find its identity between all the different options and target groups.

[wanda]

Ghost can be freely hosted on Red Hat OpenShift. There's even a quickstart installation that gives you node+mySQL and an optional load balancer in 2 clicks and 2 lines in a terminal.

https://www.openshift.com

https://www.openshift.com/quickstarts/ghost-with-mysql-on-op...

Stick your own alias over that bothersome .rhcloud.com and you're laughing.

[pera]

yes... I mean, I'm paying $5 for my VPS, so the same amount for a blog seems "too much".

And yes: those who are looking for a free blog would choice WP or some static system on GitHub.

$1/month would be interesting for me (and even more if I can pay with bitcoin), but I don't know anything about marketing :P

[dkuntz2]

You can run Ghost on that VPS...

[spindritf]

$5/month is more than I'm willing to pay to try it out.

First month is free.

[jmathai]

Right. But $5/month is more than I'd be willing to pay for a personal blog. That keeps me from investing time to try it out for other uses I'd be more willing to pay $5/month for.

[girasquid]

How many billable hours would it take to make the $60/year this will cost you?

[jmathai]

It's totally illogical. I'm not arguing that it makes any sense...I am arguing that's the mentality you'll find in the consumer Internet space.

[chc]

It's one of the mentalities you'll find in that space. Not all consumers are price-sensitive to $5, and the ones who aren't are probably the ones you want more anyway.

[VLM]

regardless if they're trying to make a go of it as a business, the mental model inside the users mind is going to be "They're going to take the first $60 of adwords revenue before I get a penny, that isn't cool".

Only a microscopic minority of bloggers blog to acquire billable hours.

Hobbyists are pretty cool paying "magazine subscription rates" as a household budgetary line item. All the spouse hears is "I'm gonna spend $30 on my hobby blah blah blah" and that goes by a lot easier than $60.

[e12e]

While I think halfing the price might be a little too much (for starting out), I think selling a year for 39.99 would probably be viable. Charging much less than 5 as a minimum payment doesn't sound very sustainable wrt expected churn, payment problems etc. I may very well be completely wrong, though.

Also, don't ignore the value of "choosing" the best customers -- those willing to pay, and willing to dedicate some resources (exemplified by paying a premium). If you build a good "community" of users, they will affect new users later -- by being an initial majority.

[octix]

Good luck with this motto :) A penny saved is a penny earned!