Ghost publishing software: $878K a month, self-reported in 2022, plus Ghost(Pro)

Ghost sells open source publishing software and managed Ghost(Pro) hosting for professional publishers. Its $878K a month was founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of May 2022.

What it actually sells

Ghost sells open source publishing software and managed Ghost(Pro) hosting for professional publishers. Its site says, “Ghost is a powerful app for professional publishers to create, share, and grow a business around their content.”

Publishers can build custom-branded websites, adjust design settings, publish by website and email newsletter, segment newsletters by preference, view audience analytics, manage memberships, and collect payments, tips, donations, and promotions.

How it charges

The product's price could not be identified on the pages we read. Ghost also describes free and paid subscriptions for a publication's audience: “Allow people to sign up for free, or purchase a paid subscription to support your work across monthly and yearly premium tiers.”

Where customers come from

Visible website signals include a theme marketplace with hundreds of custom themes, API documentation, developer resources, a help center, and a community forum. Ghost also lists integrations covering social sharing, referrals, push notifications, payment gateways, A/B testing, desktop editors, mobile apps, comments, and recommendations.

What stands out

Ghost reports 100,000,000+ installs to date and 30,579 active customers. Its site also states that publications running on Ghost earn $100,000,000+ in revenue each year.

From the official site

Ghost is a powerful app for professional publishers to create, share, and grow a business around their content.

Deliver posts by email newsletter to your audience, so they'll be in the loop whenever something new goes live. Segment your audience and send multiple different newsletters based on preference.

Allow people to sign up for free, or purchase a paid subscription to support your work across monthly and yearly premium tiers.

Excerpts from the official website, fetched October 1, 2026.

Where it sits in the data

Ghost's $878K a month is higher than 98% of the 6,604 projects with founder-reported monthly revenue in our dataset; the median across them is $2K. Snapshot: 2026-09-30. The dataset only covers founders who chose to publish their numbers, so it leans toward businesses that work; use it for scale, not as an average.

Currency

All figures are in US dollars as published. A rough yuan or euro conversion is not applied here because prices, taxes and acquisition costs differ by country.

Could you build something like this?

My view is that demand would come from professional publishers, independent journalists, writers, creators, publications, and businesses that need publishing software with website, email, audience, membership, and payment functions. A buyer could be reached through a theme marketplace, developer resources, a community forum, a help center, and integrations with established services.

Building it would require real work across publishing workflows, email segmentation, audience analytics, memberships, payments, hosting, security, and reliability. Regulation would matter when handling payments and customer data. Competition would include other publishing tools, website builders, email platforms, and membership products. A small product would need to focus on a manageable audience and a clear combination of features.

Verdict: Hard to replicate.

One thing to take from it

My view is that the strongest lesson is product shape: combine website publishing, email delivery, audience data, memberships, and payments around the work professional publishers already do. Distribution also needs software, themes, documentation, integrations, and direct support.

Sources

Ghost official website, fetched October 1, 2026
Ghost pricing page, fetched October 1, 2026
Ghost about page, fetched October 1, 2026
Indie Hackers product page: revenue founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of May 2022

Revenue, team and start-cost figures are what the founder reported at the interview date, not current figures and not a prediction of what you will earn. Product and pricing facts come from the business's own website as checked on 30 September 2026. Method & sources · Disclosure