Substack's free plan and what it really costs
Substack has no free trial: it never charges a monthly fee, at any list size. The real price is 10% of paid subscriptions; here's when beehiiv is cheaper.
People search for a Substack free trial and find nothing, then assume the free plan must be crippled and the trial hidden somewhere. Neither is true. Substack has no free trial because it has nothing to trial: there is no monthly fee to start paying when a trial ends, at any list size, ever.
That makes Substack’s free plan the most generous in the category by a distance. It also makes it the most expensive option on this page for a successful paid newsletter, and the crossover is a specific number for your list size: ten times beehiiv’s Lite price, about $490 a month in subscription revenue at 1,000 subscribers, $1,190 at 10,000.
All pricing below comes from each platform’s listed plans; verify current pricing on the vendor’s site before you commit.
What the free plan actually includes
Unlimited subscribers. Unlimited sends. No monthly fee. No card required, no expiry.
There is no subscriber tier that triggers a bill, which is the thing that separates Substack from everything else here:
| Platform | Free plan cap | What happens above it |
|---|---|---|
| Substack | Unlimited subscribers | Nothing, still $0/mo |
| Kit Newsletter | 10,000 subscribers, 1 automation | Creator from $33/mo annual |
| beehiiv Free | 2,500 subscribers (no paid subscriptions) | Lite, priced by list size: $95/mo annual at 5,000 |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo | Comfort from $10.80/mo annual at 500 subs |
If you are writing a free newsletter and have no near-term plan to charge for it, the analysis genuinely ends here. Substack costs nothing at 500 subscribers and nothing at 500,000, where MailerLite would be charging you $80.10/mo on annual billing by 10,000 and beehiiv would have moved you to a paid tier at 2,500.
Where the bill actually arrives
Substack’s price is 10% of paid subscription revenue, plus Stripe’s own processing fees on top. Not 10% of profit; 10% of every dollar a subscriber pays you, for as long as they stay subscribed.
That model is excellent when revenue is small and punishing when it is not, because it never stops scaling. The comparison point is beehiiv’s Lite plan (the cheapest beehiiv plan that lets you charge readers), whose price depends on how many subscribers you have:
| Your paid revenue | Your list | Substack takes | beehiiv Lite (annual) | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $100/mo | 1,000 | $10/mo | $49/mo | Substack, by $39/mo |
| $1,000/mo | 2,500 | $100/mo | $69/mo | beehiiv, by $372/yr |
| $1,000/mo | 25,000 | $100/mo | $169/mo | Substack, by $69/mo |
| $5,000/mo | 10,000 | $500/mo | $119/mo | beehiiv, by $4,572/yr |
| $10,000/mo | 25,000 | $1,000/mo | $169/mo | beehiiv, by $9,972/yr |
The break-even is beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size divided by Substack’s 10% rate. On annual billing that’s $490/mo in subscription revenue at up to 1,000 subscribers, $690 at 2,500, $950 at 5,000, $1,190 at 10,000 and $1,690 at 25,000 (if you pay beehiiv month to month, $590 at 1,000 and $1,390 at 10,000). Below that line, Substack’s cut is smaller than the subscription would be. Above it, every additional dollar you earn hands ten cents to a platform whose costs have not changed.
The list-size dependence is the useful part: the bigger your free list relative to your paid revenue, the longer Substack stays cheaper. The same $1,000/mo is a win for beehiiv on a 2,500-subscriber list and a loss on a 25,000-subscriber one. beehiiv’s Lite plan charges 0% take rate on paid subscriptions, so once revenue clears the line the gap only grows. At $5,000/mo in revenue (a genuinely achievable target for a niche paid newsletter) on a 10,000-subscriber list the difference is $4,572 a year, which is the salary-sized number that makes people migrate.
So when is Substack the right answer?
Before you charge anything. No monthly fee at any list size beats every free tier here. Build the list on Substack, pay nothing for a year, and lose nothing by doing so.
Early paid, under a few hundred a month. At $100/mo in subscriptions Substack takes $10 where beehiiv’s Lite plan would charge $49 even at 1,000 subscribers. You would be paying a subscription to save a fee you are barely incurring. The discovery network and the recommendation system are worth something at that stage too, and neither shows up on a pricing table.
Big free list, small paid tier. If most of your readers will never pay, beehiiv bills you for all of them while Substack only takes a cut of the few who do.
When you value not thinking about it. Substack has one plan, no tier decisions and no list-size cliff. That is a real feature.
When to move, and where
Move when your paid revenue crosses ten times beehiiv’s Lite price at your list size and looks likely to stay there. The migration only gets more expensive to delay, because the 10% compounds against you every month you wait, and unlike a subscription, you cannot downgrade your way out of it.
- beehiiv is the obvious destination: Lite from $49/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers, $119 at 10,000 and $399 at 100,000 (Lite’s cap), with a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions and premium analytics. It rates 4.7 on G2, the highest in this comparison. Pro, from $95/mo billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers, removes branding.
- Kit suits you better if the newsletter sells products rather than subscriptions. Its free Newsletter plan runs to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, and Creator at $33/mo annual adds unlimited automations. Email plans carry 0% fees; only Kit Commerce product sales take a cut.
- MailerLite is the cheapest way to leave if your list is modest and you want plain, well-priced email: $17.10/mo on annual billing at 1,000 subscribers, $44.10 at 5,000.
The one-line answer
There is no Substack free trial because Substack is free (properly free, with no subscriber cap), and it stays free until you charge readers. From that moment the price is 10% of everything, forever, and it passes beehiiv’s Lite plan once revenue reaches ten times Lite’s price at your list size: $490/mo at 1,000 subscribers, $1,190/mo at 10,000.
Start on Substack if you have not launched a paid tier. Plan your exit as your subscription revenue approaches that line for your list.
Our advisor will weigh list size, monetisation model and migration effort together, beehiiv vs Substack does the head-to-head in detail, and how to start a paid newsletter covers the launch mechanics. The real cost of an email list has the wider category maths, and the Substack alternatives page ranks the field.