I would love to be able to make customisations to the default theme using the starter pack.
I think the jump from 9 USD to 25 USD is a big lift to incorporate some basic customisations. The only other option I seem to have is self hosting which I don’t really want.
It’s a bit frustrating that I used to be able to customise the casper theme in the past but now I can’t even edit the basic casper theme and upload. Bit of fail.
I love ghost so hoping they revive this feature for the starter pack.
I’m Ghost user and open source fan. I don’t work for or speak for the Ghost folks. (I’m just glad they make it available!) So, I don’t know why they have it priced that way, although I’ll guess that they figure they’ll get enough folks to bump up to $25 than they lose from folks who are unhappy with what’s available at $9 but not willing to do $25. I’ve got no background in business, though, and I’m speculating.
Fortunately, Ghost is open source, and it’s a free market. There are other hosting options for Ghost besides Ghost(Pro). It might be worth a look at some of them, if the current plans don’t fit your needs? It’s not a huge marketplace, but there is a marketplace, and different companies have differences in how they price access to themes.
I can’t recommend any different managed hosting providers because I haven’t used them, but they’re out there if you look. I’m pretty happy running Ghost in my own virtual server, which gives me 100% flexibility to do whatever I want, at the cost of it being unmanaged, so I have to be my own sysadmin. If you need super cheap and are willing to trade time for money, that’s an option.
It’s an interesting question in general, not just for Ghost - how do you price tiers so that hobbyists and teeny tiny users find them affordable BUT companies using your platform to make real money pay more? I don’t have a great answer, but I wish more companies would figure it out, because a bigger community with an ethic of supporting each other is a better place to hang out.
Thanks a lot for that nuanced and thoughtful comment. It’s just something I used to be able to do with Ghost but they seemed to have pulled the plug on it on the basic tier.
At this stage, I just want to focus on the content and publish as often as I can. I may eventually move to self-hosting (I like to figure things out) but I don’t want it to be a distraction.
This has been helpful. Thanks @Cathy_Sarisky for your comments.
I too am experiencing similar issues after joining Ghost @adityaswami. I have been loving the platform; however, I struggle with not being able to do certain basic tasks in the Starter Plan.
And so, I too am looking for other hosting solutions. I wonder if Ghost has also done a cost-benefit analysis of people who end up leaving their Pro plans and finding other third-party platforms, which means Ghost ends up losing those customers.
I’m happy with Ghost (Pro) starter plan, but will be looking for other options soon 
I too ended up with this constraint, and as am just starting building an audience, I can’t afford the Creator plan. I edited a few English words hard-coded in the default Source theme and I found out I can’t use Starter plan anymore.
Unfortunately this will make me move to DigitalOcean or similar solutions. I wonder why Ghost team removed the ability to use custom themes in Starter plan.
Yes, the price gap in the packages is quite big. Hopefully, the team will understand soon. Love you, Ghost!
I’m a software engineer who’s just getting started with blogging. I’ve helped others set up Wordpress sites in the past, but wanted something better as I start on this journey.
I’m looking at starting 2-4 blogs on different topics, but as a developer I want to be able to customize my themes. I’m currently self-hosting Ghost because it would be cost prohibitive to pay $25/month for each of these blogs that are just starting out and generating no revenue.
I’d be open to paying $25/month if it included say 5-10 blogs with custom themes.
I believe that would be a very generous offer on the behalf of Ghost. Which leads me to the following…
CauseI I don’t get [not directed to you personally but in general] why so many people, who just like me, come from i.e. Wordpress are complaining about the costs for Ghost Pro.
Compared to what I have paid for both working and non working total junk plugins and [malfunctional] wordpress themes over the years even the $25/month option would be like a drop in the ocean.
Just recently a friend of mine [I would have advised her to go down another route] hired a Wp webdesigner slash builder who so far have managed to make my friend’s self hosted Wp site cost over €250 a month!
Never mind my friend will never ever be able to maintain and keep this site running, but in that money the LMS that is like the foundation of her business, newsletters and web hosting and such are not even included.
But I do find some of the limitations in my starter plan on Ghost Pro frustrating.
One being the Google ads TXT-file, and the other being limited to just run the one newsletter [for me two newsletters had been ideal].
But comparing my site’s Ghost installation to the actual costs of running a Wp site that has more functionality because of plugins and themes that may or may not work. Or, worse, may or may not be abandoned from one day to the other, this is like a walk in the park. No fuzz, no drama it just works.
Even so, if I would get to choose for more theme options and additional news letters on my subscription plan by i.e. getting less functionality in my Ghost editor I would take off and never look back. Cause the editor and ease of sending newsletters, and also build a good looking site is my main reason for being her.
About the editor I don’t know any editor that can do so much as the Ghost editor does.
The times when things are not working as one want it to do, there is always great support from the Pro team. Try to get support from Wp theme and plugin developers, Patreon or Substack…
There’s also a group of amazingly talented people on this forum that seem to know just about anything there is to know about Ghost.
There’s a workaround for this. If you need it and a forum search doesn’t get it for you, let me know and I’ll find the link…
There’s a a guide on adding AdSense to Ghost here that doesn’t require ads.txt and can be used on Ghost(Pro) by someone on a starter plan 
Google doesn’t approve it without the txt-file in place.