Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Square Payroll VS Ghost

Compare Square Payroll VS Ghost and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Square Payroll logo Square Payroll

Pay your team from anywhere

Ghost logo Ghost

Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.
  • Square Payroll Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-12
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10

Ghost

Website
ghost.org
$ Details
paid Free Trial $36.0 / Monthly (100k views/month, 2 users)
Startup details
Country
United Kingdom

Square Payroll features and specs

  • Integration with Square Ecosystem
    Square Payroll seamlessly integrates with other Square products, such as Point of Sale (POS), making it easier for businesses already using Square to manage their payroll without needing additional software.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Square Payroll offers a clean and intuitive interface that simplifies the payroll process, making it accessible even for users who are not tech-savvy.
  • Automatic Tax Filing
    The service automatically handles federal, state, and local tax filings and withholdings, helping businesses stay compliant with tax regulations.
  • Employee Self-Service
    Employees can easily access their pay stubs, tax forms, and benefits information through an online portal, reducing administrative workload for employers.
  • Flexible Payment Options
    Square Payroll offers multiple payment options, including direct deposit and manual check issuance, providing flexibility to meet various business needs.

Possible disadvantages of Square Payroll

  • Limited Advanced Features
    Square Payroll may lack some advanced features found in other payroll solutions, such as complex reporting tools or advanced HR functions.
  • Pricing
    While competitive, Square Payroll's pricing can become costly for larger businesses with many employees, especially when compared to other payroll providers that offer bulk discounts.
  • Availability
    Square Payroll is currently only available in the United States, limiting its applicability for businesses that operate internationally.
  • Complex Timekeeping
    Businesses with more complex timekeeping needs might find Square Payroll's time tracking features less robust compared to specialized time and attendance systems.
  • Customer Support
    Some users have reported that the customer support experience can be hit or miss, with occasional delays or inconsistent quality in responses.

Ghost features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Ghost offers a clean and intuitive interface that makes content management straightforward, even for those without technical expertise.
  • Speed and Performance
    Ghost is built on modern technology like Node.js which makes it faster and more efficient compared to some traditional CMS platforms.
  • SEO Optimized
    Ghost comes built-in with SEO features like clean URLs, meta tags, and sitemaps which help in improving search engine rankings.
  • Customizable Themes
    Ghost supports a variety of themes that can be easily customized to fit the branding and functionality needs of a website.
  • Markdown Support
    Content creation in Ghost is made easy with Markdown support, allowing writers to focus on text rather than formatting.

Possible disadvantages of Ghost

  • Limited Plugin Ecosystem
    Compared to WordPress, Ghost has a more limited selection of plugins, which might restrict some functionalities users are looking for.
  • Higher Hosting Costs
    Ghost's official hosting is relatively expensive, making it less suitable for users on a tight budget.
  • Technical Knowledge Requirement
    While Ghost is user-friendly, setting it up on a custom server can require a higher level of technical knowledge compared to some other platforms.
  • Less Community Support
    The user community for Ghost is smaller compared to more established platforms like WordPress, which can make it harder to find support and resources.
  • Limited Ecommerce Capabilities
    Ghost is primarily a publishing platform and lacks the more advanced eCommerce functionalities that other CMS platforms might offer out of the box.

Analysis of Square Payroll

Overall verdict

  • Square Payroll is a strong contender in the payroll services market, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses that require a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution. It is best suited for those who prioritize simplicity and integration with existing Square services.

Why this product is good

  • Square Payroll is often considered a good option because it offers a seamless integration with other Square products, making it ideal for businesses already using the Square ecosystem. It provides user-friendly payroll processing, tax filing, and employee support features. The platform is appreciated for its straightforward interface, affordability, and the ability to handle both W-2 employees and 1099 contractors efficiently.

Recommended for

  • Small business owners using Square POS
  • Businesses that need to manage both employees and contractors
  • Companies seeking an affordable and user-friendly payroll solution
  • Entrepreneurs who value seamless accounting and payroll integration

Analysis of Ghost

Overall verdict

  • Ghost is a highly regarded platform for serious bloggers and publishers who want a minimalistic yet powerful content management system. It is especially beneficial for those who prefer a distraction-free writing environment with the capability to scale and customize as their needs grow.

Why this product is good

  • Ghost is a popular open-source platform designed for professional bloggers and publishers. It is known for its clean design, speed, and ease of use. Ghost offers robust features for content creation, management, and distribution while focusing on providing an optimal writing experience. Additionally, Ghost is built on modern technology stacks and offers flexibility through themes and integrations. It also supports membership and subscription models, making it ideal for those looking to monetize their content.

Recommended for

  • Professional bloggers
  • Content creators looking for a minimalist interface
  • Publishers seeking to monetize their content
  • Developers looking for an open-source platform
  • Organizations that require a fast and reliable CMS
  • Writers who value a focused writing experience

Square Payroll videos

Square Payroll Review 2020: So easy to use

More videos:

  • Review - CUE Insights: Compare & Review Square Payroll Vs Gusto

Ghost videos

Why I Moved My Blog From WordPress to Ghost

More videos:

  • Review - Ghost review - CMS for creators to build a membership

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Square Payroll and Ghost)
HR
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100
HR Tools
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Square Payroll and Ghost. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Square Payroll and Ghost

Square Payroll Reviews

Top 8 Best Payroll Software For Accountants In 2022
VISIT SQUARE PAYROLLSquare PayrollDiscover the benefits and disadvantages of Square Payroll. Learn the software price, see the description, and read the most helpful reviews for UK business users.Capterra6. Rippling
Source: www.toksta.com

Ghost Reviews

Comparing 9 WordPress alternatives & competitors in 2024
Ghost specializes in creating a monetized blogging platform. Based on their subscription status, readers can create user profiles, sign up for newsletters, and browse your entire blogging calendar. The platformโ€™s singular focus on blogging makes it great for individuals and small teams, but it lacks features like real-time collaboration that are necessary for larger companies.
Source: webflow.com
19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Ghost is known for its simplicity and focus on content creation. It's a great option for writers and creators who want a clean and distraction-free environment to publish their work.
Source: www.pixpa.com
7 Best Buy Me a Coffee Alternatives
If you donโ€™t already have a website, Ghost may be an appealing option as a Patreon alternative. However, customizations are limited, and youโ€™ll need to choose a pre-built design from the theme library. There are a few themes available, but most are priced from around $80 to $150. The Ghost API also gives you a way to publish content you create on the platform to another...
Source: wpforms.com
Top 10 Web Content Management Systems
Ghost is here as one of the first entries that can be classified as a pure headless CMS. Ghost is not only one of the best headless CMS options, but it also does so while being focused primarily on the blogger community. So if you have or are thinking about starting a large blogging operation featuring many different presentation layers, then Ghost is definitely for you....
Source: cloudzy.com
25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Ghost open-source blogging and the indirect medium alternative platform. Its interface makes blogging easy for users, but also offers SEO tools and other plugins that are built into the platform. This makes it simple for users to publish high-quality content without technical difficulties.
Source: forgefusion.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ghost seems to be a lot more popular than Square Payroll. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 1 mention of Square Payroll. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Square Payroll mentions (1)

  • Payroll softwares for business with less than 5 employees?
    I highly recommend Square POS and their suite of small business software and services, they offer payroll and other important functionality in one place, making management of your business super easy and integrated. DM if you want to discuss... โ€”Rocco. Source: about 3 years ago

Ghost mentions (196)

  • Local Journalism Is How Democracy Shows Up Close to Home
    Digital production has lowered the cost, and the Ghost platform in particular is a great value for small publishers, bundling together the blog, newsletter and subscriptions in one package, even now including ActivityPub federation. And Ghost themselves a non-profit org that doesn't mark up the Stripe transaction fees! One local news outlet recently switched to that, saving about %5 on Patreon fees and a second is... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500โ‚ฌ/Year)
    Https://ghost.org โ€” Open-source run by a non-profit headquartered in Singapore. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Ask HN: Looking for Headless CMS Recommendation
    If you're hell-bent on headless, I can personally recommend 11ty (https://www.11ty.dev/) and hugo (https://gohugo.io/). That said, for non-technical admins, you probably want a user interface. For that, Ghost (https://ghost.org/) and Grav (https://getgrav.org/). Or Wordpress! - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Typepad Is Shutting Down
    They should provide an option to move to https://ghost.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Build an analytics agent to analyze your Ghost blog traffic with the Vercel AI SDK and Tinybird
    In this post, I'll show you how to build an agent with sufficient contextual understanding of underlying analytics data - and the tools to query it - so that you can have a chat with your data (any data!). Specifically, I'll build a simple analytics agent for a blog - hosted on the open-source publishing platform Ghost. The agent will tell us which content is performing the best, and why. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Square Payroll and Ghost, you can also consider the following products

Deel - Deel is the people platform built to help you hire, manage, and pay anyone, anywhere.

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Gusto - Gusto. Payroll, benefits and compliance in one integrated product. We're here to change how the world works, and put people first.

Medium - Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

SumoPayroll - SumoPayroll is a fast growing online HR & Payroll management software in India, It aims to say goodbye to the paper office. Please ask us for a FREE Demo! Simple & Affordable pricing for all businesses. Signup for free upto 10 employees

Drupal - Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.