These were my thoughts exactly. Maybe it just hasn't made business sense for them to host cheaper plans, since it's available to self-host. But you're right, even against competitors (Squarespace) it's quite a bit more expensive. Not sure what justifies such a gap.
At one point it looks like they'd even jacked it up to $79/month minimum, and the $29/month basic plan was added since then [1]. I guess that didn't sell well.
I have no experience with squarespace (just hear about them in podcasts), but I know they have pretty nice templates, they host blogs, stores (digital and physical), podcasts, and probably more, priced at $12 or $18/month.
From a cursory glance through Ghost's site I'm not seeing what value they bring to the table that makes it worth more. Reeeeaaaallly good blog, I guess?
