Beehiiv vs Substack: Newsletter Platform Comparison

At a glance

Beehiiv and Substack are both newsletter platforms, but they take fundamentally different approaches to pricing and feature scope. Beehiiv charges monthly subscription fees but takes zero percent of your earnings, while Substack remains free and takes 10 percent of subscription revenue. Choose based on whether you prefer predictable software costs or revenue-share pricing.

	Beehiiv	Substack
Best for	Multi-channel creators; audience monetization focus	Writers prioritizing simplicity and zero upfront cost
Free plan	Yes, unlimited sends up to 2,500 subscribers	Yes, unlimited everything
Starting paid plan	$49/month (Lite)	No monthly fee; 10% of paid subscriptions
Included features	Newsletter, podcast, community, website, digital products	Long-form articles, podcasts, video, paywall gating
Monetization take rate	0% on digital products; ad network included	10% of subscription revenue only
Integrations	API and webhooks	Not published
Analytics	30-day lookback (Free); unlimited (Pro+)	Not published

Beehiiv: strengths and limits

Beehiiv positions itself as an all-in-one platform. The free plan includes unlimited email sends to up to 2,500 subscribers, landing pages, email templates, an API, and access to a recommendation network. Creators own their audience data and retain 100 percent of subscription revenue when using Beehiiv’s paid subscription feature.

The platform bundles podcast hosting, community features, a website builder, and digital product sales into every tier. On the Lite plan at $49 per month, creators unlock paid subscriptions with no commission, ad network access averaging $39 per month, and automations. The Pro plan at $95 per month removes Beehiiv branding, adds webinars and coaching tools, and provides unlimited analytics lookback. Team seats scale from one on the Free plan to unlimited on Enterprise.

Limits emerge for subscribers above certain thresholds. The Free plan caps at 2,500 subscribers; Lite at 100,000; Pro at 250,000. Beehiiv offers an Enterprise tier for custom subscriber counts and security needs, though pricing and exact features require contacting sales. The Pro plan includes AI credits, though the extent and usage limits are not detailed in published materials.

Substack: strengths and limits

Substack takes a writer-first approach. The platform remains free with no subscriber limits or monthly fees. Creators pay nothing until earning money from paid subscriptions, at which point Substack retains 10 percent. This revenue-share model appeals to creators uncertain about generating income early on.

The editor supports long-form articles, podcasts, video posts, and static pages. Built-in features include A/B testing on headlines, content gating at any point in a post, post scheduling, version history, and rich formatting options including code blocks with syntax highlighting, LaTeX support, footnotes, pull quotes, and callout blocks. Creators can embed other Substack publications, polls, surveys, and recipe blocks with structured SEO markup. Content can be cross-posted, and Substack remains unbranded regardless of plan.

Substack’s scope is narrower. It lacks a built-in website builder, community tools, or digital product sales features separate from gating email content. The platform’s API and integration ecosystem are not detailed in published documentation. Analytics features and their lookback windows are not published. Substack focuses on email and long-form publishing rather than ecosystem expansion.

Price and plans

Beehiiv charges monthly, with pricing tiered by features rather than subscriber count. The Lite plan costs $49 per month with yearly billing. The Pro plan is $95 per month. Both include unlimited email sends within their subscriber tier limits. Annual prepayment offers savings. Beehiiv takes zero percent commission on all monetization methods: paid subscriptions, digital products, and sponsorships. Ad network revenue is yours to keep after platform commissions, which average $39 per month.

Substack charges nothing monthly. When a reader subscribes to a paid newsletter, Substack deducts 10 percent of that subscription price as its fee. The remaining 90 percent goes to the creator. There are no setup fees, subscriber limits, or minimum revenue thresholds. Stripe payment processing incurs standard credit card fees on top of Substack’s 10 percent.

For a creator earning $1,000 per month in subscription revenue, Beehiiv at the Pro tier costs $1,140 yearly while keeping 100 percent of earnings. Substack costs $0 monthly but retains $100 of the $1,000 monthly payment, or $1,200 annually. The math shifts at scale: at $5,000 monthly earnings, Beehiiv remains $95 per month while Substack takes $500 monthly. At that scale, Beehiiv’s fixed cost becomes proportionally cheaper.

Which one should you choose

Choose Beehiiv if you plan to diversify revenue across subscriptions, sponsorships, digital products, and advertising. The zero percent commission on earnings and bundled tools justify the monthly fee for multi-channel creators. Also choose Beehiiv if you want to remove platform branding, need team collaboration, or require advanced automations and analytics with unlimited lookback.

Choose Substack if you are early-stage and want zero financial commitment to test whether your audience will pay. Substack’s free tier genuinely has no limits. It suits writers focused on long-form content and email who do not need website builders or community features. Choose Substack if you expect to earn modestly or prioritize simplicity over platform ecosystems. The 10 percent fee is also competitive for low-revenue creators compared to Beehiiv’s monthly charge.

For scaling creators earning over $3,000 monthly, Beehiiv’s math typically favors the fixed monthly cost and zero percent commission model. For experimental writers or those earning below that threshold, Substack’s revenue-share approach is often cheaper.

Common questions

Does Beehiiv or Substack have better SEO tools?

Beehiiv offers SEO customization at the Pro tier and above, allowing control over metadata and URLs. Substack includes SEO metadata controls and structured data markup for recipe blocks, but details on URL customization and subdomain options are not published. Beehiiv’s website builder also provides more direct SEO control than Substack’s email-first focus.

Can you build a website on both platforms?

Beehiiv includes a website builder on all plans, enabling custom pages without coding. Substack supports static pages and custom URLs for publications but does not describe a full website builder. For creators needing a standalone branded web presence, Beehiiv’s integrated website feature is more comprehensive.

Which platform is better for podcasting?

Beehiiv integrates podcast hosting, distribution, and monetization into all plans, with automatic publishing to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms. Substack supports podcast posts and publishing but does not detail hosting infrastructure, distribution partnerships, or dedicated podcast analytics separate from email.

Does either platform take a cut of sponsorship revenue?

Beehiiv retains zero percent of sponsorship revenue. Substack only takes 10 percent of paid subscription fees, not sponsorships. Both platforms allow sponsorship management, but Beehiiv’s broader monetization tools make sponsorship handling more integrated into the platform.

The conclusion

Beehiiv and Substack serve different creator profiles. Substack is the lower-friction, free entry point for writers building an email audience without upfront cost. Its revenue-share model rewards early-stage creators and makes financial planning simple: you earn, Substack takes 10 percent.

Beehiiv is the platform for creators ready to think like businesses. It bundles monetization tools, team collaboration, and multi-channel publishing into fixed monthly plans with zero commission. The upfront cost is offset by retained earnings and ecosystem benefits like built-in podcast hosting, websites, and community.

Neither platform is objectively better. The choice depends on your business model, audience size, revenue expectations, and whether you value simplicity or integrated tooling. A creator earning primarily from sponsorships and digital products will nearly always favor Beehiiv’s zero-commission model. A writer testing paid subscriptions for the first time will likely prefer Substack’s zero monthly fee.

Consider your current revenue and projected earnings over 12 months, not just feature count. That calculation usually determines which platform delivers real value for your workflow.

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