Deconstructing the new Ghost analytics endpoints

I was helping another developer building an external dashboard for Ghost get access to the new analytics baked into Ghost. Here's what I learned.

Endpoints:

"Top" posts: /ghost/api/admin/stats/top-posts/

Optional parameters and sample values:

• date_from=2022-12-28
• date_to=2025-09-22
• order=free_members+desc
• post_type=post (or page, or blank to get both)

Sample result:

{
  "stats": [
    {
      "post_id": null,
      "attribution_url": "/",
      "attribution_type": "url",
      "attribution_id": null,
      "title": "Homepage",
      "published_at": null,
      "free_members": 7,
      "paid_members": 6,
      "mrr": 19248,
      "post_type": null,
      "url_exists": false
    },
    {
      "post_id": "68a33ca316030a0001dcff43",
      "attribution_url": "/discord-sample-page/",
      "attribution_type": "page",
      "attribution_id": "68a33ca316030a0001dcff43",
      "title": "Discord Sample Page",
      "published_at": "2025-08-18T14:49:05.000Z",
      "free_members": 0,
      "paid_members": 3,
      "mrr": 5832,
      "post_type": "page",
      "url_exists": true
    }
  ]
}

Top growth sources /ghost/api/admin/stats/top-sources-growth/

Parameters:

• date_from and date_to (as above)
• limit=20
• member_status=undefined,free,paid
• order=signups+desc

Sample response:

{
    "stats": [
        {
            "source": "Created manually",
            "signups": 1,
            "paid_conversions": 0,
            "mrr": 0
        },
        {
            "source": "Direct",
            "signups": 1,
            "paid_conversions": 9,
            "mrr": 36621
        }
    ],
    "meta": {}
}

Subscriptions /ghost/api/admin/stats/subscriptions/

This endpoint also takes date_from and date_to parameters.

{
  "stats": [
    {
      "date": "2025-08-17",
      "tier": "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
      "cadence": "month",
      "positive_delta": 3,
      "negative_delta": 0,
      "signups": 3,
      "cancellations": 0,
      "count": 3
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-08-17",
      "tier": "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
      "cadence": "year",
      "positive_delta": 3,
      "negative_delta": 0,
      "signups": 3,
      "cancellations": 0,
      "count": 3
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-08-18",
      "tier": "66a5236fe87f2c0001e025b6",
      "cadence": "year",
      "positive_delta": 5,
      "negative_delta": 5,
      "signups": 1,
      "cancellations": 1,
      "count": 0
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-08-18",
      "tier": "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
      "cadence": "year",
      "positive_delta": 6,
      "negative_delta": 4,
      "signups": 2,
      "cancellations": 0,
      "count": 5
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "cadences": [
      "year",
      "month"
    ],
    "tiers": [
      "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
      "66a5236fe87f2c0001e025b6"
    ],
    "totals": [
      {
        "count": 3,
        "tier": "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
        "cadence": "month"
      },
      {
        "count": 5,
        "tier": "68a24f9016030a0001dcfe86",
        "cadence": "year"
      }
    ]
  }
}

MRR (revenue) over time /ghost/api/admin/stats/mrr/

I don't think this endpoint takes date arguments, although I'm being hampered by having very limited analytics data in my faked up demo site.

{
    "stats": [
        {
            "date": "2025-08-16",
            "mrr": 0,
            "currency": "usd"
        },
        {
            "date": "2025-08-17",
            "mrr": 19248,
            "currency": "usd"
        },
        {
            "date": "2025-08-18",
            "mrr": 25080,
            "currency": "usd"
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "totals": [
            {
                "currency": "usd",
                "mrr": 25080
            }
        ]
    }
}

Member count /ghost/api/admin/stats/member_count/

This endpoint takes date_from and date_to.

Sample output:

{
    "stats": [
        {
            "date": "2025-09-16",
            "paid": 9,
            "free": 2,
            "comped": 0,
            "paid_subscribed": 0,
            "paid_canceled": 0
        },
        {
            "date": "2025-09-17",
            "paid": 9,
            "free": 2,
            "comped": 0,
            "paid_subscribed": 0,
            "paid_canceled": 0
        }
        ... many lines removed ... 
    ],
    "meta": {
        "totals": {
            "paid": 9,
            "free": 2,
            "comped": 0
        }
    }
}

Post-specific endpoints

You can also get per-post stats!

Endpoints:

• /ghost/api/admin/stats/posts/{post_id}/top-referrers/
• /ghost/api/admin/stats/posts/{post_id}/growth/
• There does not appear to be a per-post MRR endpoint. Instead, the request goes to /ghost/api/admin/stats/mrr/ .

Tinybird endpoints

In addition to these endpoints that use the Ghost Admin API, there are also requests going to Tinybird. These take a token, which you can get (with your staff token) from: /ghost/api/admin/tinybird/token/

Then the request for data looks like this:
https://api.tinybird.co/v0/pipes/api_kpis.json?site_uuid=(removed)&date_from=2022-12-28&date_to=2025-09-22&timezone=America%2FNew_York&post_uuid=&from=chart&token=(removed)

Sample result:

{
  "meta": [
   ... 
  ],
  "data": [
    {
      "date": "2022-12-28",
      "visits": 0,
      "pageviews": 0,
      "bounce_rate": 0,
      "avg_session_sec": 0
    },
    ... lots more dates ... 

There's also a top sources endpoint:
https://api.tinybird.co/v0/pipes/api_top_sources.json?site_uuid=(removed)&date_from=2025-08-28&date_to=2025-09-22&timezone=America%2FNew_York&post_uuid=(removed)&from=chart&token=(removed)

Sample result:

{
  "meta": [
     ... 
  ],
  "data": [
    {
      "source": "LinkedIn",
      "visits": 25
    },
    {
      "source": "",
      "visits": 16
    },
    ... 

Email stats

/ghost/api/admin/links/

Parameters:

• Filter (i.e. post_id:'{post_id}' url encoded)
  

{
    "links": [
        {
            "post_id": "68b05fb1e8d44f1231db5634",
            "link": {
                "link_id": "68b07d61e8d44f0001db5ad1",
                "from": "<url>",
                "to": "<url>",
                "edited": false
            },
            "count": {
                "clicks": 12
            }
        }

/ghost/api/admin/stats/newsletter-basic-stats/

parameter: newsletter_id

{
    "stats": [
        {
            "post_id": "68b05fb1e8d456f0001db634",
            "post_title": "Some post",
            "send_date": "2025-03-21T16:01:36.000Z",
            "sent_to": 1040,
            "total_opens": 629,
            "open_rate": 0.6048
        }
     .... many lines skipped ... 
    ]
}

/ghost/api/admin/stats/newsletter-click-stats/

Parameters:

• newsletter_id
• post_ids=(comma separated list, encoded)

{
    "stats": [
        {
            "post_id": "664d1f2fdee1d20001ae1367",
            "total_clicks": 28,
            "email_count": 505,
            "click_rate": 0.0554
        },
        {
            "post_id": "667aabc1c4c30a0001eb5c96",
            "total_clicks": 42,
            "email_count": 573,
            "click_rate": 0.0733
        },

💡Quick tip: API keys need to be converted to tokens. Here's how:

Here's a small utility for making requests from Ghost admin API endpoints, without using the SDK.

// ghost-client.js // 

import fetch from 'node-fetch';
import crypto from 'crypto';

class GhostAdminClient {
  constructor(url, adminApiKey) {
    this.url = url.replace(/\/$/, ''); // Remove trailing slash
    this.adminApiKey = adminApiKey;
    this.apiVersion = 'v5.0'; // Current Ghost Admin API version
    this.baseUrl = `${this.url}/ghost/api/admin`;
  }

  /**
   * Generate JWT token for Admin API authentication
   * @returns {string} JWT token
   */
  generateToken() {
    const [id, secret] = this.adminApiKey.split(':');
    
    // Create the token header
    const header = {
      alg: 'HS256',
      typ: 'JWT',
      kid: id
    };

    // Create the token payload
    const payload = {
      iat: Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000),
      exp: Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) + (5 * 60), // 5 minutes from now
      aud: '/admin/'
    };

    // Encode header and payload
    const encodedHeader = Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(header)).toString('base64url');
    const encodedPayload = Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(payload)).toString('base64url');

    // Create signature
    const unsignedToken = `${encodedHeader}.${encodedPayload}`;
    const signature = crypto
      .createHmac('sha256', Buffer.from(secret, 'hex'))
      .update(unsignedToken)
      .digest('base64url');

    return `${unsignedToken}.${signature}`;
  }

  /**
   * Make authenticated API request
   * @param {string} endpoint - API endpoint (without /ghost/api/admin prefix)
   * @param {Object} options - Fetch options
   * @returns {Promise<Object>} API response
   */
  async makeRequest(endpoint, options = {}) {
    const url = `${this.baseUrl}${endpoint}`;
    const token = this.generateToken();

    const defaultOptions = {
      headers: {
        'Authorization': `Ghost ${token}`,
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Accept-Version': this.apiVersion,
        ...options.headers
      }
    };

    const requestOptions = {
      ...defaultOptions,
      ...options,
      headers: {
        ...defaultOptions.headers,
        ...options.headers
      }
    };

    try {
      const response = await fetch(url, requestOptions);
      
      if (!response.ok) {
        const errorData = await response.json().catch(() => ({}));
        throw new Error(`Ghost API Error: ${response.status} ${response.statusText} - ${JSON.stringify(errorData)}`);
      }

      return await response.json();
    } catch (error) {
      console.error('Ghost API request failed:', error);
      throw error;
    }
  }

import GhostAdminClient from './ghost-client.js';

const GHOST_URL = 'https://your-admin-domain';
const ADMIN_API_KEY = 'your-api-key-or-staff-token'
const ghost = new GhostAdminClient(GHOST_URL, ADMIN_API_KEY);

const analyticsData = await ghost.makeRequest('/stats/top-posts/', {
      method: 'GET'
});
console.log(JSON.stringify(analyticsData, null, 2));

Hey, before you go... If your finances allow you to keep this tea-drinking ghost and the freelancer behind her supplied with our hot beverage of choice, we'd both appreciate it!

Buy me a tea ☕️