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(this is based on assumptions of 20,000 members, 7% paid at $5/mo. twiddle the math as you see fit)

Cheapest option is self-hosting, though of course there is added time cost and a technical barrier to entry. I pay $100–$150/mo to self-host Ghost with a bit over 25,000 subscribers.

For free newsletters, Beehiiv is free for up to 2,500 subscribers. ConvertKit is free up to 10,000.

Adding to this thread because a bunch of people are asking: newsletters are expensive to run because of mailsending, not because of hosting costs. ~70% of my cost is for bulk email. A plain old static blog can be hosted for a couple bucks a month.

For those who aren’t a fan of my 20,000 number, here’s a breakdown:

(edited to fix an error in self-hosted ghost for 50k subs)

@molly0xfff Wow - I love people who can whip a table like that like it's nothing. Always takes me hours to get everything right...

Probably stupid question: why is the self-hosting Ghost quintupling in price between 50k and 100k subscribers? What is the step taken?

@ineiti @molly0xfff ghost pro isn't self-hosting, it's a company's managed hosting option

@simrob no, ineiti’s question is indeed about the self hosted version, and I was wondering the same

@ineiti @molly0xfff

@GuillaumeRossolini @ineiti @molly0xfff oh, my apologies. Molly alluded to this: anywhere you're hosting from is almost certain to block outgoing emails, so you have to use a separate email delivery service like Mailgun. That's probably the vast majority of her expense.

@simrob it is, she’s said 70%, but that doesn’t explain the jump in cost from 50k subs to 100k, it isn’t linear

@molly0xfff @simrob oh, right! Four+ weeks per month, of course

@GuillaumeRossolini @molly0xfff @simrob

and minor misprint (100 K for 200K), but nothing changes.

... It made me enlarge the image though, just to see.