Beehiiv and Substack both let you run a newsletter with a website, archive and signup flow, but they charge on different axes. Substack is free to publish and takes a 10% cut of paid subscription revenue, with writers keeping 90% minus credit card fees. Beehiiv sells a subscription: Free at $0 with unlimited email sends, then Lite at $49 per month billed yearly for paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, and Pro at $95 per month billed yearly to remove beehiiv's branding from your emails and site.
TL;DR
Beehiiv's Free plan costs $0 and lists unlimited email sends, templates, landing pages, its recommendation network and API access; paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate start on the Lite plan at $49 per month billed yearly, and Pro is $95 per month to remove beehiiv branding. Substack costs nothing to publish, and it monetizes by keeping 10% of your paid subscription revenue on top of payment processing (writers keep 90% minus card fees). The choice inverts with revenue: a free newsletter is free on both, and a paid one costs $49+ per month flat on Beehiiv but 10% of everything on Substack, so the break-even sits around a few hundred dollars of monthly subscription income.
That difference compounds. On Substack, a publication earning $500 a month from subscriptions pays roughly $50 in platform fees indefinitely; on Beehiiv's Lite plan the same revenue costs $49 a month flat and you keep everything above Stripe's processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. Substack's counter-argument is that it costs nothing until you earn, and its network puts your publication in front of readers who already pay on the platform; Beehiiv's Free plan answers part of that by listing unlimited sends, but the paid-subscription feature itself is what carries the $49.
Beyond monetization the feature sets point at different publishers. Beehiiv lists ad monetization and an A/B testing toolkit on paid tiers plus a recommendation network on every plan, which suits growth-focused operators running ads alongside subscriptions. Substack bundles podcast hosting through its Recording Studio, chat and notes, and frames ownership plainly: you keep your intellectual property, mailing list and subscriber payments. Neither publishes a per-seat model; both are priced per publication.
| Feature | Beehiiv | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $0 with unlimited email sends, templates, landing pages, recommendation network, API | Free to publish, no monthly fee |
| Paid entry | Lite at $49/mo billed yearly | No subscription fee; 10% of paid subscription revenue |
| Top self-serve tier | Pro at $95/mo billed yearly, branding removed | Not tiered; the 10% cut is the monetization |
| Platform fee on subscriptions | 0% on paid plans, Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 applies | 10% plus card processing |
| Podcast | Included on every plan per beehiiv's FAQ | Native hosting via Recording Studio |
| Ads and growth tools | Ad monetization and A/B testing on paid tiers | Recommendations and notes for discovery |
| Branding control | Removable on Pro | Follows Substack's theme system |
| Ownership | You run publication on your own domain | You own IP, mailing list and subscriber payments |
Pick Beehiiv if
Once subscription revenue passes a few hundred dollars a month, Beehiiv's flat $49 Lite plan costs less than Substack's 10% cut and keeps rising in your favor as revenue grows. The Free plan also covers unlimited sends for a publication that is not yet charging, so you can start there and upgrade into the 0% take rate when monetization begins.
Pick Substack if
Substack costs nothing until money arrives, and the 10% cut is simple to reason about. If your paid subscription revenue is early or uncertain, paying 10% of a small number beats committing to $49 a month, and the bundled podcast, chat and notes remove the need for separate tools while you validate.
We did not survey users or aggregate third-party reviews for this pair. Every statement above comes from beehiiv's and Substack's own pricing and about pages as published on the date shown.
Substack, until your subscription revenue covers beehiiv's Lite plan. At $50 a month of paid revenue, Substack's 10% cut is $5; beehiiv's Lite plan is $49 a month billed yearly and charges 0% from that point on.
Yes, on paid plans. beehiiv's pricing FAQ states it takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue, and that you keep what you earn minus Stripe's standard processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. The Free plan does not include paid subscriptions.
Technically yes, but subscribers who paid through Substack would need to re-subscribe on the new platform, since Substack controls that billing relationship. Export your reader list, then plan a migration window and an offer to reduce churn.
Both include a website. Podcast hosting is native on Substack through its Recording Studio, and beehiiv's FAQ states that website, podcast, community and digital products are included on every plan.
Pro removes beehiiv branding from your emails and site and sits above Lite's paid subscriptions, 0% take rate, ad monetization and A/B testing. Both paid prices assume yearly billing, which beehiiv states saves up to 20%.
On Substack you keep your intellectual property, mailing list and subscriber payments, per the company's own framing. On beehiiv the publication runs on your account and domain, and the platform's API access on the Free plan supports moving data out.
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