Spectral Web Services
Ghost does a lot. These tools do the rest.
Nineteen tools for publishers who need more than Ghost ships with — events, newsletters, ads, search, syndication — with automation and tools for the tedious bits.
Built by a certified Ghost Expert who got tired of solving the same problems repeatedly.
Free tier, no card required. 50% off for community and nonprofit publishers.
- Advanced Search
- Newsletter Digests
- Haunts Event Calendar
- Itty Bitty Ad Server
- Institutional Access
- Ghost to Apple News integration
- Popup Builder
- Bulk Actions
- Tag Wrangler
- Staff Creator
- Editorial Board
- Table of Contents
- Sharing Buttons
- Clickable Footnotes
- Membership Geolocation
- Member Preferences
- Fundraising Thermometer
- Republish Tracker
- Email Automations
Meet the tools
Nineteen and counting. Start with whichever problem is loudest.
Advanced Search beta free
Full-text search for your Ghost site.
Real search on the server, not the client-side "search" Ghost ships with. Indexes your posts and pages, and returns fast relevant results. Paywall? No problem. Search results can be a lead magnet, too!
Newsletter Digests beta
Turn your Ghost posts into newsletter drafts.
Construct a newsletter from your recent posts. Weekly digest? Single-article send? Curated roundup? Yes, yes, and yes. Review and tweak a draft if you want, or schedule newsletter digests that ship while you sleep.
Haunts Event Calendar beta
Every event in town, in one embeddable calendar.
Point Haunts at your haunts — the library, the brewery, the Meetup group, the venue page from 2011 — and get one embeddable calendar with multiple styles to match your site.
Itty Bitty Ad Server beta
Run linked-image ads on your Ghost site with rotation and analytics.
Small is beautiful. Upload linked images, drop a bottom adhesion bar or insert ads next to any element, and rotate multiple ads in a slot. Tracks impressions and clicks so you can see what's working. Paste one line of code once — manage everything else from here.
Institutional Access core
Sell access to libraries and other institutions.
Universities, libraries, and other institutions want to buy access for their whole community — let them. Their patrons get your content through the library proxy or straight from a recognized IP address, no individual accounts needed. You get a revenue stream most Ghost sites leave on the table.
Ghost to Apple News integration beta core
Syndicate your Ghost posts to Apple News, automatically.
Push your published Ghost posts straight to your Apple News channel — formatted into Apple News Format, branded, and on autopilot. Choose which posts go (everything, or opt-in/opt-out by tag), stage them in Apple's review queue or publish live, and let a webhook keep new posts flowing without lifting a finger.
Popup Builder beta free
Configure audience-targeted popups for your Ghost site.
Build a popup in a few minutes. Subscribe prompts, donation asks, whatever you need. Target by member status, by page, by how long someone's been reading.
Manage your content 3 tools free
Bulk Actions Tag Wrangler Staff Creator
Ghost is very good at writing one post and much less interested in the thousand already published. Bulk edits, tag cleanup, and the whole masthead at once.
Editorial Board alpha free
Track post status, assignees, and publication dates across your Ghost site.
A dashboard for editors. See what's drafted, what's assigned to whom, what's scheduled, what's planned but not yet written. Spot the gaps in your content calendar before they become Monday-morning problems. If you've ever kept an editorial calendar in a spreadsheet, you'll get it immediately.
The widgets Ghost is missing 3 tools free
Table of Contents Sharing Buttons Clickable Footnotes
Three things a serious post wants — and all three still work once the post becomes an email.
Member labels 2 tools
Membership Geolocationcore Member Preferencesfree
Member labels can be used for segmentation, letting you send the perfect content to each member. These tools make it possible.
Fundraising Thermometer alpha
Live progress bars tracking Stripe dollars or Ghost members.
Embed a live fundraising thermometer anywhere. Set a goal, and watch the progress in real time as donations come in or members sign up. Perfect for fundraisers, membership drives, or just showing off how awesome your community is.
Republish Tracker alpha
Let other outlets republish your articles — and see where they run.
Add a Republish button to your posts via code injection. Readers get clean, ready-to-paste HTML — your byline, credit line, and republishing guidelines baked in — and you get analytics on which articles get picked up and by whom. Nothing heavy. A tiny tracking pixel and script do the counting.
Email Automations almost-alpha
Welcome and onboarding email sequences for your Ghost members.
Drip sequences for your members: greet new free signups, onboard new paid supporters — immediately, three days in, two weeks later, whenever you like. You write the emails as Mailgun templates that send through your own Mailgun account; we watch the clock.
Coming soon
Meet the Creator
Hi! I'm Cathy Sarisky. I'm a freelancer and occasional Ghost core contributor. I've been working on Ghost for clients full time for the last two years (and part time for several years before that), as Spectral Web Services. I'm a "Certified Ghost Expert", with a significant track record. Go ahead and look me up on the Ghost forum. I'll wait.
These tools grew (er... are growing?) out of a bunch of problems it felt like I was solving over and over for clients, and my frustration with gaps in what Ghost provides natively that serious publications need.
My goal is to collect together a bunch of useful services and charge you one fair price for it.
I welcome your feedback! What else do you want in a tools package, and where are the tools I'm currently offering not yet doing everything you need them to?
Plans and Prices beta
Here's the deal. I'm a one-woman shop trying to make Ghost do the things publishers and creators need it to do. I'm not trying to get rich off your newsletter. I do need to cover my server bills, pay for the tokens, and — not gonna lie — have health insurance for my kids.
You know how SaaS plans always seem to jump from "free" to "$99/mo" the moment you have the tiniest whiff of success? I hate that. I'm not here to grab your first bit of monetization. If you're just getting started, time is money, and you don't have much of either!
Having said that, if these tools are saving you hours a week and powering a site that's doing well — then paying a fair price helps keep the lights on and helps lift up the smaller sites who can't pay yet. That's the deal. Pay what fits where you are.
If something here doesn't fit your situation, get in touch. We'll figure it out.
Small site? Community publication? Just getting going?
Use code SHOESTRING at checkout for 50% off, no questions asked. It's on the honor system.
If you're a small local news outlet or community group, and especially if you're publishing from and for a community that's been historically underserved by tech — this is for you.
Expect an occasional check-in to ask if you still need the discount as your site and usage grows.
One important request for discount-users: Please acknowledge and link back to Spectral Web Services. Thanks!
If you're running a profitable media business with a team and a budget, please don't use the code. Leaving it at full price helps me keep offering it to the folks who need it.
Free
for the small and scrappy
$0 / forever
- Basic tools: Popup builder, Staff creator, Editorial board, Sharing tool, Footnote helper, Bulk actions, Member preferences, Table of contents, Tag wrangler
- Newsletter digest builder (draft only)
- Haunts Free
- Advanced search (with your Algolia account)
Core
for sites doing real work
$15 / mo per site
- Everything in Free
- Newsletter digests & automations
- Itty Bitty Ad Server
- Apple News syndication
- Automatic member location labelling
- Fundraising thermometer
- Institutional access
- Republish tracker
- Haunts Regular
Pro
for sites doing a lot of real work
$30 / mo per site
- Everything in Core
- Email automations (sent from your own Mailgun)
- Haunts Local Legend
- Haunts custom onboarding (annual only)
- Priority support
- Higher traffic and usage limits
Mogul
You're big... and you know it!
$100 / mo per site
- Everything in Pro, plus extra capacity
- For sites with five-digit MRR
- Concierge support and custom onboarding
- You're literally the reason small sites get a discount. Legend.
Add-ons
No plan fits everyone. These are pay-for-what-you-use extras on top of any paid plan.
The Big Appleprice varies
Haunts includes generous defaults. Running a massive regional events hub with a ton of events and crazy high traffic? Let's scale it up.
Haunts Jump-startfrom $50 (once)
Busy? Want me to find your local venues? Need custom feeds added to Haunts? Need a scraper built? I got you.
Buy Cathy some teapay what you like
Not a plan — just a thank-you. If one of the free tools saved you an afternoon, the tip jar keeps the tea hot and the servers humming.
Just here for the calendar?
Haunts is also available separately.
Haunts, the community events calendar for publishers, pulls every event in town — the library, the brewery, the Meetup group, the venue page nobody's touched since 2011 — into one embeddable calendar, an RSS feed, and a weekend roundup you can paste straight into your newsletter.
Free to start. Fair to stay.
Get started