After dabbling in some self hosting for Ghost, I realised I was spending all my time doing technical stuff, instead of being able to just get on with it and create my site/newsletter/content in ghost.
I signed up to Magic Pages a few months ago on the pro lifetime plan. I have been very impressed with the quality of the service & also the support offered by Jannis on the occasions I have contacted him.
Awww donāt make me blush 
Glad to hear youāre happy on Magic Pages!
Iām really new to Ghost and still exploring to see if it has all the features I need, but if it does, Iāll definitely get one of your hosting packages. The lifetime option sounds pretty tempting, but I do wonder if having too many lifetime users could make the hosting setup unsustainable for you, or not bring in enough revenue long-term 
Totally fair question. The lifetime plans originate from the tiny little side project, Magic Page started out as. Back in early 2023, when I started it, I had a single server, that I got as a lifetime deal myself (recycled hardware, basically).
So, back then, it was completely sustainable. Right now, the lifetime deals are actually a tiny amount compared to the subscriptions currently running on Magic Pages.
I wrote a little bit about the financial model behind Magic Pages on my personal blog:
In a nutshell, the monthly revenue is split into two parts. A predictable (monthly subscriptions) and an unpredictable (yearly subscriptions, lifetime plans, additional email purchases). The unpredictable is used for bigger investments (e.g. I just upgraded my laptop to run bigger development stacks there), whereas the predictable revenue is split in half.
50% of that pays for my running cost (servers, subscriptions for services I use), the other 50% goes towards a cash reserve.
This essentially buys me one month of additional runway, every month. So, even if everyone cancels tomorrow (please donāt 
), there is already a good cash reserve to keep the lights on.
Also, I am not sure how long Iāll keep the lifetime plan around. Currently I am leaning towards removing it with the pricing overhaul in the beginning of 2025.
After getting in contact with Jannis for hosting my Ghost blog from Ghost Pro, I have to strongly recommend against Magic Pages.
I write a political blog which has been recommended multiple times by the artist George Burchett, son of notable Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, and others. I also write for a political newspaper elsewhere and they have awarded me for my contributions.
Jannis refused to host my content due to his own biases, stating the nationality of a large part of his family. Ghost Pro has no problem with hosting my blog.
I have instead decided to go with Spectral Web Services to migrate my Ghost blog for long-term self-hosting.
Hey Tracey ā I just typed an email reply to you, when I saw this post (so, my reply here and in the email will look similar, given that I have answered to both your email and this post).
I want to be absolutely clear in one thing: I fully respect your right to express your opinions and understand the importance of your viewpoints. However, as the sole proprietor of Magic Pages, I have to make sure that the content hosted on the platform is something I am personally comfortable with. Magic Pages is not a corporation, a separate legal entity, or anything else. Right now, it is acting as a sole trader in my name. If it comes to it, I am the one who needs to defend hosting every piece of content with authorities in the jurisdiction I am in.
Therefore yes, I have declined to host your content, because I am personally not comfortable with it being on my servers, running on my name. I am sure you will disagree with this, but some of the content can also be interpreted as a violation of the Acceptable Use Policy of Magic Pages, specifically the part that prohibits defamatory statements and the promotion of violence against individuals or groups.
Once again, I truly respect your right to express yourself and your opinions, but I would also ask for your understanding, that I have a right to choose who I do business with.
I wish you all the best in finding a hosting solution that suits your needs.
Just wanted to quickly drop in here to share some news about Magic Pages. Over the past year, the whole operation has grown from a single server to almost 20 servers, each with its own redundancy and a full-site CDN. So, first of all, a huge thank you is in order! 
Initially, when I set the prices, I made a few educated guesses. And hey, they were pretty good in general, but the distribution of purchases between Starter and Pro plans turned out to be a bit of a challenge.
As a result, Iām introducing new pricing for new subscribers starting on January 1, 2025 . Donāt worry if youāre already signed up ā your rates will stay the same.
Hereās what they look like:
Starter Plan:
Pro Plan:
(All prices are excluding your local taxes ā where possible, payment in the local currency will be offered.)
These changes will help ensure that I can continue to provide the service you all love and add new features (automatic backup imports, anyone 
).
If you have any questions about this, just let me know. Always happy to chat here, via email, or in the Magic Pages chat 
Hi Jannis, I landed to this thread by searching a way to communicate with ghost.io about their pricing policy.
Congrats on building Magic Pages, is always good to have alternative managed services. I like your landing page, pretty explanatory on the offering.
What I donāt understand is the crazy tier up-sale for using a custom theme. For a small project, that is just testing the market, or a side project blog that wants to have a basic try of you service, does not make sense to pay the pro tier for having a custom theme. Same goes for ghost.io where I have to pay $25/mo instead of $9/mo for a custom theme.
Also, I could not find in the brief look around, how is Magic Pages different from ghost.io?
Thank you.
Hey Bogdan!
Happy to answer your questions! 
The āProā plan was actually the original plan I started with when I launched Magic Pages. It included everything ā basically, the full package. But as things grew, I had a lot of people reaching out who wanted a more affordable option with fewer features.
So, the Starter plan was born out of that demand. The limitation on custom themes isnāt due to any technical constraints, itās purely a business decision.
The Starter plans are just about covering their own costs. They leave me with around $1.50 per month per plan (one of the reasons for the price increase I mentioned in my last post above). Theyāre great for people starting out (hence the name), but I canāt really run a sustainable business on them alone.
The idea is that if youāre serious about your project and want to customize your site more, the Pro plan would be the way to go. I still think it offers incredible value when you consider the SLA, the email usage, and the fact that everything is managed for you.
When youāre testing the market, do you really need a custom theme? If you do, Iād like to think that $12/$15 per month (old/new pricing) is a fair deal for that level of customization and service. Otherwise, there are other Ghost hosting services as well that have no limitations on custom themes, but are a little less managed (e.g. no managed email, etc.). Maybe that could be a good option for testing the waters?
For that, you can use the 14-day trial. Itās only limited in the number of emails you can send, but it basically represents the Pro plan. After the 14 days, you can decide whether Magic Pages works for you and whether the Starter or Pro plan suits your needs better.
Great question! Some differences are that Magic Pages offers custom configuration options and the ability to download full backups from the customer portal, which you canāt do on Ghost(Pro). Also, subdirectory installations are possible without any add-ons on all plans.
Hope this clarifies things! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Always happy to chat!
Hi Jannis, thank you for the fast reply. I want to check a year of your pro plan, is there any way to buy without the trial, I want to bring my domain and not to have a subdomain for 14 days and then change?
Thanks.
There is no way to buy without a trial at the moment, no. You can upgrade at any time, though (e.g. start the trial and then upgrade right after)
Iāll try this, I will come back with a review. Thanks.
Easy setup, straight forward. Jannis was there to help with domain setup, I recommend great support.
Wanna chip in a friendly advice about the custom domain setup. Itās clearly written in the important note about custom domain setup, that not all providers support the listed CNAME records. And that is very true, since the CNAME with @ is actually not allowed in the DNS specifications. Any provider that supports that is actually doing a workaround behind the scene, but makes it appear as if itās a CNAME record.
Here is how I setup my domain, because I didnāt want to pay the 1 USD per month to Bunny:
Custom domain: funky.site
| Type | Host | Value |
|---|---|---|
| ALIAS / ANAME | @ | funky.mymagic.page |
| CNAME | www | funky.mymagic.page |
With the above configuration my site now site works with both funky.site and www.funky.site. Perfect! 
Love this! Iāll update the documentation in the next few days to include that. Thank you for sharing
Hi there! Are there any plans to include Discourse on Ghost as part of the Pro tier benefits or as a purchasable add-on in the future?
No, no plans for that. My focus is on actual Ghost hosting and its infrastructure, and this is a separate application/server that would need to run somewhere. So, no plans to add that to Magic Pages
I want to share another update that might be interesting for some of you.
Pinturaās image editor is now included in all Magic Pages Pro plans 
Quite honestly, Pintura wasnāt high on my priority list. In fact, only three users have asked about it since Magic Pages launched. I was quite tempted when the Ghost team paved the way for the integration in 2023, but for a small hosting service, the cost was pretty restrictive.
However, Magic Pages has grown significantly in the last months and the cost to integrate Pintura makes perfect sense now.
The integration is now live, at no extra cost, for:
My personal experience so far (as someone who always thought it wasnāt necessary 
), after using Pintura in the last few days: I didnāt
know I wanted it, until I used it
Itās one of these small things that can actually change your workflow for the better. Before, I always did image cropping, and some light editing in Figma, but now I donāt have that context switch anymore, and I quite enjoy it 
If you have any questions about this let me know!
That is marvellous 
. Thank you!
I was planning to purchase it myself, but now there is no need! 
Awesome!! I was perhaps one of those three users who asked lol :)
It does save quite a bit of time editing pics, so thanks for including this!