Beehiiv vs Substack: which paid newsletter keeps more?
Beehiiv vs Substack fee math: the revenue where beehiiv's Lite plan beats Substack's 10% cut at your list size, worked from $500 to $10,000/mo.
Beehiiv vs Substack is really an argument about one number: 10%. Substack charges nothing monthly and takes 10% of your paid subscription revenue forever. beehiiv flips the model: a monthly fee for its Lite plan, which unlocks paid subscriptions at a 0% take rate. That fee scales with your list: $49/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers, $119 at 10,000. So the lines cross at ten times beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size: $490/mo of paid subscription revenue at 1,000 subscribers, $1,190/mo at 10,000. Below that, Substack is the cheaper way to run a paid newsletter; above it, beehiiv keeps more of every dollar, and the gap widens as revenue grows.
That crossover is the heart of this comparison, so we’ll work it through properly, with real numbers at four revenue-and-list-size scenarios, and then look at what each platform gives you beyond the fee structure. All pricing below comes from each platform’s listed plans (beehiiv’s checked on 2026-10-08, after it renamed and repriced its plans); verify current pricing on the vendor’s site before you commit.
The short answer
- Pick beehiiv if you expect your paid newsletter to earn more than about ten times beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size ($490/mo at 1,000 subscribers, $950/mo at 5,000), or if you want growth tooling (a referral program, boosts, an ad network) built into the platform. Its price tracks list size, not revenue, so your margin improves as revenue grows.
- Pick Substack if you’re starting from zero, want to publish today with no monthly bill at any list size, and value its discovery network, app, and Notes feed more than the 10% it takes when readers pay.
Both platforms host your newsletter, archive, and paid subscriptions. The difference is who carries the risk: Substack only earns when you do, while beehiiv charges you either way, and rewards you for it once revenue is real.
Pricing at a glance
| beehiiv | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Free to 2,500 subscribers; Lite from $49/mo billed yearly ($59 monthly) at 1,000 subscribers, rising with list size; Pro from $95/mo billed yearly | $0 at any list size |
| Cut of paid subscriptions | 0% | 10% (plus Stripe fees) |
| Free tier | Free up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends | Unlimited subscribers, no monthly fee |
| Paid newsletters | Unlocked on the Lite plan | Built in from day one |
Two details in that table matter more than they look. First, beehiiv’s Free plan doesn’t include paid subscriptions. Per its listed tiers, charging readers requires Lite, so the fee starts the day you monetize, not the day you outgrow the free tier. Second, Substack’s 10% is on top of Stripe’s payment processing, which both platforms pass through, so the 10% is a pure platform premium, not a replacement for processing costs.
The fee math: where the crossover sits
The comparison reduces to a simple equation. Substack’s cost is 10% of whatever your paid subscribers pay you. beehiiv’s cost is the Lite price for your list size, no matter what your subscribers pay you. The two are equal when your monthly subscription revenue is ten times that Lite price, which means the crossover moves with your list:
| Subscribers on your list | beehiiv Lite (billed yearly) | Break-even paid revenue | Break-even if billed monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 1,000 | $49/mo | $490/mo | $590/mo |
| 2,500 | $69/mo | $690/mo | $790/mo |
| 5,000 | $95/mo | $950/mo | $1,090/mo |
| 10,000 | $119/mo | $1,190/mo | $1,390/mo |
| 25,000 | $169/mo | $1,690/mo | $1,990/mo |
Everything above the break-even is margin you either keep or hand over. Here’s what that looks like in four scenarios, each pairing a revenue level with a plausible list size (4-5% of the list paying $10/mo, plus one newsletter with a big free list and a small paid tier):
| Paid subscription revenue | List size | Substack’s 10% cut | beehiiv Lite (annual) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $500/mo | 1,000 | $50/mo | $49/mo | beehiiv saves $1/mo ($12/yr) |
| $500/mo | 5,000 | $50/mo | $95/mo | Substack saves $45/mo ($540/yr) |
| $2,000/mo | 5,000 | $200/mo | $95/mo | beehiiv saves $105/mo ($1,260/yr) |
| $10,000/mo | 25,000 | $1,000/mo | $169/mo | beehiiv saves $831/mo ($9,972/yr) |
Stripe processing applies on both sides, so it cancels out of the comparison.
At $500/mo the answer depends entirely on your list. With 1,000 subscribers it’s a dead heat: $1 a month is not a reason to migrate a newsletter. With 5,000 subscribers and the same revenue, Substack is cheaper by $540 a year, because beehiiv is charging you for a large free audience that isn’t paying yet. At $2,000/mo it’s a real bill: $1,260 a year buys a lot of growth experiments. And at $10,000/mo, Substack’s cut is roughly six times beehiiv’s Lite price. A percentage take rate is the platform betting on your success and charging you for it retroactively; a fixed fee is you betting on yourself.
The flip side deserves equal weight: below the break-even, Substack is genuinely cheaper, and at $0 in revenue it’s free while beehiiv’s Lite plan would cost you $588/yr at 1,000 subscribers for paid features you’re not yet using. The rule that falls out of the table: the bigger your free list relative to your paid revenue, the longer Substack stays cheaper. If you haven’t validated that anyone will pay, Substack’s model absorbs that risk for you. This is the same pattern we found across creator platforms in our transaction fees breakdown: percentage fees subsidize your start and tax your scale.
If you want to model your own subscriber count and price point rather than our examples, the pricing calculator will do the arithmetic for you.
Free list costs by subscriber size
Fee math only applies once you charge. If you’re growing a free list first (which is usually the right move), the cost picture inverts:
| Subscribers | beehiiv | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $0 | $0 |
| 2,500 | $0 | $0 |
| 5,000 | $95/mo | $0 |
| 10,000 | $119/mo | $0 |
| 25,000 | $169/mo | $0 |
beehiiv’s Lite plan on annual billing, from its listed pricing; excludes paid add-ons.
Substack is free at every list size, full stop. beehiiv is free to 2,500 subscribers; past that you move to a paid plan priced by list size: $95/mo at 5,000 ($1,140/yr), $169/mo at 25,000 ($2,028/yr), and $399/mo at 100,000, where Lite tops out. beehiiv used to charge one flat price above its free tier; that’s no longer the case, so a big free list now costs real money there. For a pure free newsletter with no monetization plans, Substack is the only truly $0 option here.
Growth and discovery: the case for each
Substack’s strongest argument isn’t pricing. It’s the network. Recommendations from other Substack writers, the mobile reader app, and the Notes social feed can all send you subscribers you did nothing to earn. For a writer starting with no audience, that discovery engine is the product, and it’s what the 10% is actually buying. The publishing experience is also famously simple: no plan-picking, no settings maze, just write and hit send.
beehiiv’s counterargument is that it builds the growth machinery into the platform itself: a built-in referral program, boosts (paid subscriber acquisition from other newsletters), a recommendations network of its own, an ad network for monetizing free readers, and noticeably deeper audience analytics. It also gives you a newsletter website alongside email. The trade-off is that more machinery means more to configure, and some of it sits behind the higher Pro tier (from $95/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers), which removes beehiiv branding and adds team seats.
On the things neither does well: Substack offers minimal automation and segmentation, so if you want welcome sequences or tagging you’ll outgrow it fast. beehiiv is newsletter-only by design (it’s not built for ecommerce automation), and its best features are gated behind paid tiers. Their community ratings are nearly identical (4.7 vs 4.6 on G2 per our data), which tracks with the real difference being the business model, not the quality.
One more consideration that doesn’t show up in a fee table: on Substack, your publication lives inside Substack’s ecosystem: its app, its network, its rules. That’s the source of both the discovery upside and the ownership downside. beehiiv is closer to a conventional email platform in that respect: your list, your site, your funnel.
Which one should you start on?
A pattern worth naming: plenty of creators launch on Substack for the frictionless start and free discovery, then migrate to beehiiv once revenue makes the 10% sting. That’s a reasonable path (email lists export cleanly, and paid subscriptions can be migrated through Stripe), but migrations cost momentum, and the crossover can come earlier than most people expect. At 1,000 subscribers it’s $490/mo, roughly 70 readers paying $7/mo. If you’re confident you’ll clear the break-even for your list size within your first year, starting on beehiiv skips the move entirely.
If you’re still weighing a wider field (including Ghost and Kit, which change the math again), our guide on how to start a paid newsletter compares all four models side by side.
Choose beehiiv if / choose Substack if
Choose beehiiv if:
- You expect paid subscription revenue above ten times beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size ($490/mo at 1,000 subscribers, $1,190/mo at 10,000). Every dollar past the crossover is margin you keep
- You want referral, boost, and ad-network growth tools built in rather than bolted on
- A solid share of your list pays: the higher your paid revenue per subscriber, the sooner beehiiv wins
- You value analytics and a newsletter website over a social network
Choose Substack if:
- You’re starting from zero and want a $0 bill until readers actually pay you
- Discovery matters more than margin: recommendations, the app, and Notes can grow an audience you don’t have yet
- You want the simplest possible publishing experience with nothing to configure
- Your newsletter is a free one with no monetization plans, or a large free list with a small paid tier, where Substack costs less
The honest summary: Substack is the better bet on an unproven newsletter, beehiiv is the better business once the newsletter works, and ten times beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size is the line between the two. If you’re not sure which side of that line your plans fall on, our advisor will match you based on your list size, price point, and goals.