beehiiv vs. Kit vs. Substack: Three Ways to Price a Newsletter
beehiiv, Kit and Substack charge newsletter publishers in three structurally different ways — flat tiers, subscriber-count fees and pure revenue share.
beehiiv, Kit and Substack answer "what does this platform cost me" in three different ways: beehiiv locks you into one of four flat-fee tiers with hard subscriber caps, Kit's published price scales with your exact subscriber count even within a single paid plan, and Substack charges nothing upfront but takes a 10% cut once you switch on paid subscriptions.
For a small, free newsletter the gap barely matters; it compounds once a list grows or a publication starts charging readers.
Why this comparison, and why now
Most newsletter-platform roundups list features side by side without explaining that the underlying pricing logic isn't the same product sold at three different prices — it's three different bets on how a publisher's costs should grow. beehiiv bets on flat, predictable tiers gated by subscriber count. Kit bets on pricing that tracks list size directly, even at the entry paid tier. Substack bets on taking a share of what a publication actually earns, rather than charging for the tool itself. Readers of ToolPulse who write their own newsletter, run a client's, or are simply evaluating where to publish next can't compare these three on price alone without knowing which bet they're making.
Pricing at a glance
As of Oct 5, 2026, per each vendor's official pricing/support pages (Substack's own help-center article on cost was last fetched directly by ToolPulse on Sept 29, 2026 and returned an HTTP 403 on this run; its figures below were cross-checked against several independent secondary sources on Oct 5, 2026 that describe the same fee structure, with no reported change).
| Platform | Free tier | Entry paid plan | Top-end plan shown | How it scales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| beehiiv | Up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, 1 seat, 1 publication | Lite: $49/month billed yearly, up to 100,000 subscribers, paid subscriptions at 0% beehiiv take rate, ad monetization | Pro: $95/month billed yearly, up to 250,000 subscribers, no beehiiv branding, advanced analytics. Enterprise is custom above that. | Flat fee per tier, tier chosen by subscriber cap — same price whether you have 3,000 or 99,000 subscribers on Lite |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages and broadcasts, digital product sales | Creator: $33/month ($390/year) for 1,000 subscribers — unlimited automations, sequences, SMS marketing | Pro: $66/month ($790/year) for 1,000 subscribers — Subscriber Signals, unlimited users, referral system | Price shown is for 1,000 subscribers; Kit's own interactive pricing slider (0–500K+) increases the price as list size grows past that, though the exact per-step figures above 1,000 subscribers weren't retrievable as static page content on this run |
| Substack | No platform fee to publish or send a free newsletter | No separate paid "plan" — turning on paid subscriptions costs 10% of that revenue to Substack, plus Stripe's processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) and a 0.7% billing fee on recurring charges | Same 10% rate regardless of revenue; no higher tier to move to | Zero fixed cost; cost is purely a percentage of paid-subscriber revenue, with no subscriber-count-based plan at all |
Sources: beehiiv.com/pricing (retrieved Oct 5, 2026), kit.com/pricing (retrieved Oct 5, 2026), Substack's fee structure per its official help-center article "How much does Substack cost?" (directly retrieved Sept 29, 2026; re-confirmed via independent secondary sources Oct 5, 2026 after the official page returned an access error on this run).
What each platform's model means in practice
beehiiv
beehiiv's four tiers (Free, Lite, Pro, Enterprise) each come with a flat monthly price and a hard subscriber ceiling, per beehiiv's own pricing page: Free tops out at 2,500 subscribers, Lite at 100,000, Pro at 250,000, and Enterprise is custom above that. The page states that paid subscriptions carry a 0% beehiiv take rate starting on Lite, and that Lite also unlocks ad monetization through beehiiv's own ad network. Pro adds removal of beehiiv branding, unlimited guest authors and a longer analytics lookback window (unlimited, versus 12 months on Lite and 30 days on Free). The practical effect: a publisher who grows from 3,000 to 90,000 subscribers pays the same $49/month the entire way, as long as they stay within Lite's cap and don't need Pro's extras.
Kit
Kit's free tier covers up to 10,000 subscribers — the most generous free subscriber cap of the three — with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, plus digital product sales built in, per Kit's own pricing page. Both paid tiers, Creator ($33/month, or $390/year) and Pro ($66/month, or $790/year), are explicitly priced "for 1,000 subscribers" on that page; Kit's pricing tool includes a slider running from 0 to 500,000+ subscribers that recalculates the monthly price as list size grows, which is the mechanism behind Kit's subscriber-based scaling. The retrieved page content for this run showed the 1,000-subscriber price points and the existence of that slider, but not the specific dollar amount at each higher subscriber band — publishers above 1,000 subscribers should use Kit's own calculator for an exact current quote rather than extrapolating from the numbers above.
Substack
Substack's model has no subscriber-tiered plan to pick at all: publishing and sending a free newsletter carries no Substack platform fee, regardless of list size, per the fee breakdown confirmed above. The cost only appears once a publication turns on paid subscriptions, at which point Substack takes 10%, Stripe takes its standard processing cut (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction), and a further 0.7% billing fee applies to recurring charges — together landing around 13.6% + $0.30 per transaction on a typical recurring payment, based on the published rates. A custom domain is a separate $50 one-time fee. There's no higher "Pro" tier that lowers that percentage; the 10% platform cut is the same whether a publication earns $50 or $50,000 a month from paid subscribers.
What differs for a publisher deciding today
The three platforms stop being comparable on a single number once a newsletter has any real subscriber count or any paid-subscription revenue, because the cost drivers aren't the same unit. beehiiv's cost is driven by subscriber count alone, independent of revenue — a free newsletter with 80,000 non-paying subscribers still needs a $49/month Lite plan. Kit's cost is also driven by subscriber count, but continuously rather than in four big steps, and bundles in automation/sequence features that beehiiv and Substack don't price separately. Substack's cost is driven entirely by paid-subscriber revenue and is zero for anyone who never turns on paid subscriptions, no matter how large the free list gets. A newsletter that's purely free-to-read and growing fast is cheapest on Substack (and free on Kit up to 10,000 subscribers); a newsletter that's already earning meaningful paid-subscription revenue may end up cheaper on a flat beehiiv or Kit plan than paying Substack's 10% indefinitely, once revenue crosses roughly the plan's monthly price divided by 0.10.
Who should pick what
- Free newsletter, growing list, no plans to charge readers: Substack costs nothing regardless of list size, and Kit's free tier covers up to 10,000 subscribers with automation tools beehiiv's free tier doesn't include.
- Publication that already earns steady paid-subscription revenue: worth running the math — once 10% of monthly paid revenue exceeds beehiiv's Lite price ($49/month) or Kit's Creator price ($33/month for 1,000 subscribers), a flat-fee plan can cost less than Substack's percentage, and beehiiv's 0% take rate on top of the flat fee removes the ongoing revenue share entirely.
- Newsletter that wants built-in ad monetization alongside paid subscriptions: beehiiv names an ad network directly on its Lite plan; neither Kit's nor Substack's pricing pages describe an equivalent built-in ad marketplace.
- Creator-marketing-heavy publisher who leans on automations, sequences and SMS: Kit bundles those into its Creator plan starting at $33/month for 1,000 subscribers, where beehiiv and Substack don't offer SMS marketing as a named feature on their pricing pages.
- Anyone still undecided: starting on whichever platform's free tier fits the current list size costs nothing and can be changed later — none of the three charge an exit fee on the plans reviewed here.
What this comparison doesn't cover
None of the three vendors' pricing pages address deliverability rates, editor quality, migration friction between platforms, or how support response times compare — none of that can be answered from a pricing page, and ToolPulse has not used any of these three platforms to publish. Kit's exact pricing above 1,000 subscribers requires its own interactive calculator rather than a fixed table, so publishers with larger lists should treat the figures above as a starting point, not a final quote. Substack's effective rate above assumes Stripe's standard published fee; some publishers may see different processing terms depending on currency or region, which weren't checked here.
Sources & methodology
This comparison is based on the vendors' public information as of Oct 5, 2026, not on hands-on testing.
- beehiiv — Pricing, retrieved Oct 5, 2026
- Kit — Pricing, retrieved Oct 5, 2026
- Substack — "How much does Substack cost?" official help-center article, directly retrieved Sept 29, 2026; fee structure re-confirmed via independent secondary sources on Oct 5, 2026 after the official page returned an access error on this run
Tools in this post
beehiiv
beehiiv is a newsletter and publication platform with a free tier and two paid tiers (Lite and Pro) priced by plan, plus buil…
- Free plan
- From $49/month (annual billing) · Lite
- Prices checked Oct 2, 2026
Substack
Substack is a newsletter publishing platform with no flat platform fee for free publishing; it instead takes a percentage of …
- Free plan
- From $0.30 per transaction · Paid subscriptions
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
Kit
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is an email newsletter and creator-marketing platform with a free tier and two paid tiers, priced b…
- Free plan
- From $33/month · Creator
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
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