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Ghost vs Kōlea
A lovely publication. Kōlea runs your Ghost theme and adds sequences, product sales, help with the writing, and dollars next to every email.
What Ghost is built for
Ghost is a publishing platform: a fast site, posts, newsletters, and paid memberships through Stripe. It's open source, and Ghost(Pro) will host it for you.
- Publishing, with beautiful themes
- Paid memberships through Stripe
- Open source you can host yourself
What Kōlea is built for
People who write, and sell what they make. One place for the email, the site, the shop, and the numbers that join them up, with help at the blank page and a check before you send.
Kōlea takes nothing from your sales. Money goes through your own Stripe account.
Where Kōlea is different
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Your Ghost theme still works
Kōlea reads Ghost's theme format, Handlebars helpers included, so a lot of Ghost themes run without changes. Your old post links keep working too.
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Email that runs on its own
Welcome series, launches, and after-sale follow-ups that stop the moment someone buys. Ghost is built around the publication. Kōlea is built around the list.
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Sell a download, not only a membership
Digital products through your own Stripe, delivered by email the moment someone pays, with Launch Studio to plan the sale.
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A first draft when you're stuck
The Ghostwriter drafts in your voice, the slop meter flags prose that sounds machine-made, and four readers review it before your list does.
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Which email made the money
Every sale is credited to the email the buyer clicked, so each broadcast and sequence shows what it earned, in dollars.
Stay on Ghost if
You run a publication first and email second, or you want to host the software yourself. Ghost is open source and Kōlea isn't.
Moving from Ghost
Members (with their unsubscribes), posts at the same links, tags as topics, and your theme.
Anyone who unsubscribed stays unsubscribed. We'll help you move for free.
What we say about Ghost is what Ghost says about itself, as of October 2026. If something here is out of date, tell me.
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