What do you want to build?
A reading-first site with your list and paid work close at hand.
All of it — theme, tools, integrations — in one subscription.
Start your free trial with this setup
Yoast. WooCommerce. Mailchimp. Akismet. Every renewal, every conflict, every Sunday-night patch.
Yoast SEOSEOYoast SEOSEOYoast Premium — $118.80/yr per siteNot a screenshot — click around. Demo data, zero signup.
Photographers, beekeepers, ceramicists, philatelists, fountain-pen enthusiasts — and 96 more expert communities, each with a dedicated landing page written in their own vocabulary.
Five platforms, twelve features, one row per truth. We checked.
Feature counts reflect capabilities shipped without third-party add-ons as of October 2026. LCP figures for WordPress, Ghost, and Squarespace are third-party median-LCP measurements (State of Web Vitals CMS explorer, corewebvitals.io, 2026 crawl) — a median-LCP metric, distinct from other public sources that report a pass-rate (% of sites passing all Core Web Vitals) instead, which isn't directly comparable. No public LCP benchmark was found for Substack. VeloCMS's 0.8s is an internal desktop performance target, not a mobile figure and not yet an independently published measurement.
VeloCMSCOMPLETE | WordPress+ plugins | GhostSelf-host | SubstackRevenue-share fees | SquarespacePaid plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block editor | Native | Plugin needed | Native | Limited | Native |
| Page builder | Native | Paid add-on | Not available | Not available | Native |
| Native commerce | Native | Plugin needed | Not available | Not available | Native |
| Newsletter w/ segments | Native | Plugin needed | Native | Native | Not available |
| AI SEO scoring | Native | Plugin needed | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Paid memberships | Native | Plugin needed | Native | Native | Limited |
| Custom themes | 39 incl. | Paid add-on | 11 incl. | none | 100s · paid |
| Integrations library | Native | Native | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Transaction fee | 0% | 0% | 0% | 10% | 0–3% |
| LCP (VeloCMS: desktop target) | 0.8s | 1.9s | 1.3s | n/a | 1.7s |
| Full data export | Native | Native | Native | Limited | Limited |
| Monthly price (starter) | $9 | $8+ | $0 | $0 | $36 |
| Native total | 10/12 | 2/12 | 4/12 | 3/12 | 5/12 |
The core platform is identical on every plan. Team size, API access, and white-labeling are what scale.
For solo creators ready to launch a serious blog.
For growing publications with a team.
For agencies managing multiple client sites.
Drag the slider to your monthly revenue. We'll show what each platform pockets.
If something else is missing, ping us at [email protected].
It replaces WordPress + 8 plugins (Yoast, WooCommerce, MailPoet, Akismet, BackupBuddy, Elementor or Beaver, WP Rocket, MemberPress) + Mailchimp + Stripe Connect + a separate hosting bill. One subscription, one platform, one update path.
WordPress is a 20-year-old PHP CMS plus a plugin marketplace. Plugins conflict, charge separately, and need weekly security updates. VeloCMS ships block editor, page builder, e-commerce, newsletters, AI SEO, and members in one shipping unit — no separate plugin bills, no Sunday-night patches.
It keeps working, and you keep your content either way. Every post, member, media file, and setting exports as JSON, CSV, or Markdown from the admin panel any time — no self-hosted fallback needed, just a clean export you can take anywhere.
14-day trial. A card is required to start it unless you have a cardless trial code, and your first charge is on day 15. There is no free plan. Cancel anytime. You keep everything you wrote on free export — Markdown, attachments, members CSV.
Yes. Posts, members, subscribers, attachments — all yours. Export anytime as Markdown + JSON. If we ever shut down, you walk away with a complete, portable export — nothing proprietary, nothing to negotiate.
Probably. We ship dedicated landing pages for 101 expert communities (photographers, beekeepers, ceramicists, philatelists, fountain-pen enthusiasts, and 96 more). Browse all 101 at /niches.
We tested imports from WordPress XML, Squarespace XML, Substack export ZIP, Ghost JSON, and Medium archive. Each ports posts, attachments, and metadata. WordPress comments are not imported, and the WordPress importer wizard says so before you start.
Yes, within limits: every plan starts with a 14-day free trial (a card is required to start it unless you have a cardless trial code) and you're not charged until day 15. Your first payment, monthly or annual, is refunded in full if you ask within 14 days of the charge. After that there are no refunds and no refund of unused time, but you can cancel anytime with no further billing. If a verified outage or defect affects you, we refund the unused part of the current monthly period pro rata. Plugins are refundable within 7 days; domains are non-refundable once registered.
14-day free trial · Card required to start · First charge on day 15
