Spectral Web Services
Funding local news on Ghost
I wrote this thing, and I thought others might find it useful, too.
(It happened again. I wrote a huge post somewhere else and went "duh, that's a blog post".)
If you're here because you're just getting started in local news and are thinking about running your newsroom on Ghost, I recommend checking out Tiny News Collective, whose Publisher membership tier includes Ghost hosting and support from yours truly. I might be biased, but I think they're pretty awesome.
I'm not a journalist. I'm a techie who works for journalists & newsrooms, so I see a /lot/ of websites and pricing strategies. I'm not going to imagine I can offer you useful advice, but I'll dare to offer a couple observations and examples. The writing below is my own, and not funded or approved by TNC.
You don't have to have a bunch of bonus content to offer multiple prices. I see lots of sites, both for communities large and small that offer multiple tiers, even though the benefits for the higher tiers may be mostly feel-good/emotional. (Examples - two totally different markets, but the pitch is actually pretty similar: https://www.matsusentinel.com/signup/ , https://51st.news/membership/ ) It's really easy in Ghost to add another tier or two to give people who'd like to support you more an easy way to do so.
Paywalling is tricky. Is it better to paywall all/most of your content? That would mean that all your readers would be paying, but it also means you miss out on the opportunity to convert free readers to paid readers or to ask your free readers to make a one-time gift to support you. It's all or nothing. Not having some content that's free makes it really hard to establish that your subscription is worth paying for. Consider using the Ghost "public preview" card, which lets you give readers access to part of the content, followed by a pitch to sign up / upgrade to paid to read the rest. (Example here: https://www.austinpolitics.net/can-the-city-make-txdot-pay-for-billboard-removal/ ) Alternately, if you're publishing 2x a week, consider doing one free and one paid-only. Again, that lets you show value and get a larger group of free sign-ups who might later convert or donate.
From an SEO standpoint: paywalled content is unreadable to Google, which means you won't get traffic to your site for paywalled articles.] I also see sites that require a paid subscription offering a "please contact me if you can't afford a subscription and I'll give you access", and then they pitch supporting access to local news for everyone as a reason for other readers to contribute more if they can.
Consider additional funding options. Would a local business like to sponsor the newsletter or website for the month? I'm not saying you should get super obnoxious with popover ads (yuck!), but a sponsorship message might help bump your income. You can see an example of an in-article sponsorship here: https://www.levernews.com/as-health-costs-soar-a-democrat-steps-in-to-shield-his-insurance-donors/ (That's a Ghost CTA card.) Or an end of homepage example here: https://bsquarebulletin.com/
Consider shout-outs to top supporters - see the end of this newsletter for example: https://www.goldentoday.com/newsletter/whats-happening-in-golden-saturday-feb-7th-2026/ . Great social proof that other people think the free content is worth paying for.
All example links are Ghost sites, and all sites I've worked with.