A revenue-share platform against a flat-fee growth machine.
| Substack | Beehiiv | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | None | Free to 2,500 subscribers, then from $43/mo (annual billing) |
| Cut of paid subscriptions | 10% plus Stripe fees | 0% on paid plans, plus Stripe fees |
| Free plan ceiling | No subscriber limit | 2,500 subscribers on Launch |
| Cost at scale | Still free to use; the 10% grows with revenue | Tiered by subscriber count, roughly $290-329/mo near 100,000 on Scale |
| Growth tools | Recommendations, Notes, network effects | Recommendations, referral program, Boosts |
| Ad monetization | None built in | Ad network on Scale and above |
| Remove platform branding | Limited | On Max, from $96/mo (annual billing) |
| Automations and segmentation | Basic | Email automations, surveys, polls on paid plans |
| Multiple publications | Separate publications | Up to 10 on Max |
| Payments | Stripe | Stripe |
Substack has no plans and no subscription fee. Publishing is free at any list size, and the platform takes 10 percent of paid subscription revenue. On top of that, Stripe charges its standard processing fee of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction, and a 0.5 percent billing fee on recurring payments, per Substack's own help center. On a $10 monthly subscription you keep roughly $8.40. If nobody pays you, Substack costs you nothing forever.
beehiiv charges by plan and list size. Launch is free up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends. Scale starts at $43 a month on annual billing, $49 monthly, at the entry subscriber tier, and steps up at thresholds like 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, and 75,000 subscribers, reaching roughly $290 to $329 a month near the 100,000 cap. Scale adds the ad network, a 0 percent take rate on paid subscriptions, automations, and three team seats. Max starts at $96 a month on annual billing and removes beehiiv branding, adds a sponsorship storefront, up to 10 publications, and unlimited seats. Enterprise is custom above 100,000 subscribers. The crossover is easy to compute: 10 percent of paid revenue passes $43 a month at about $430 a month of subscription income, so above that level beehiiv's flat fee usually wins, as long as your subscriber tier stays put.
Pick Substack if you are a writing-first creator who wants zero cost until money shows up. There is no bill at 500 subscribers and no bill at 200,000 free subscribers; the platform only earns when you do. For a new paid newsletter with an unproven audience, that is the correct risk allocation, and it is the reason I would start most paid-first writers there.
The network is the other real asset. Substack's recommendations and Notes send actual subscribers, and for many publications the network is a meaningful share of new signups. beehiiv has a recommendation system too, but Substack's reader-facing app and cross-promotion culture are further along. If your niche already has established Substack publications that might recommend you, that distribution is hard to replicate elsewhere.
The cost is the permanent 10 percent. If you grow into thousands of dollars of monthly subscription revenue, you will be paying hundreds a month for a platform others rent for a flat fee.
Pick beehiiv if your model is a large free list monetized with ads and sponsorships. The ad network on Scale connects you with sponsors directly, the referral program and Boosts are built for audience growth, and none of that exists natively on Substack. This is the playbook beehiiv's founders ran at Morning Brew, and the product is shaped around it.
It is also the better deal for established paid newsletters. At $1,000 a month of subscription revenue, Substack's cut is $100 a month and rising with every new subscriber; beehiiv Scale at a small list size stays at $43 and takes nothing from the revenue itself. Add the operator features, automations, surveys, segmentation, and, on Max, full white labeling, and it looks less like a blog host and more like an email business platform.
The costs are the subscriber-tier pricing, which charges you for list growth whether or not it earns anything, and a smaller discovery network than Substack's.
A large free list is free on Substack and expensive on beehiiv. Most comparisons run the math on paid revenue only, but beehiiv's tiers price on total subscribers. Fifty thousand free subscribers with weak paid conversion can cost more in beehiiv plan fees than Substack's 10 percent would take on the same publication. Run your own numbers in both directions, not just the revenue-share direction.
The effective Substack fee is more than 10 percent. Once Stripe's 2.9 percent plus 30 cents and the 0.5 percent recurring billing fee are counted, small-priced subscriptions give up 15 percent or more of gross, because the flat 30 cents hits a $5 subscription much harder than a $50 one. Annual plans soften this, since one transaction covers twelve months.
Switching costs are lower than people fear, in both directions. Both platforms let you export your subscriber list, and both bill through Stripe. What you cannot export is Substack's recommendation traffic, so if the network drives a big share of your growth, treat that as the real lock-in, not the tooling.
I would start most paid-first writers on Substack. It costs nothing until revenue arrives, the discovery network is real, and a 10 percent fee on a small number is a small number. Once paid revenue clears roughly $500 a month, or if the plan from day one is a big free list monetized with sponsorships, beehiiv's flat pricing and 0 percent take rate win the math, and its operator tooling is stronger. The mistake I see most is choosing on brand affinity. This is genuinely a spreadsheet decision: put your expected list size and paid revenue into both fee models, and let the totals pick the platform. Both will let you leave with your list if you get it wrong.