beehiiv is the platform we recommend when the newsletter is the product. If you plan to earn from sponsors, ad placements, paid subscriptions and cross-promotion, and you want the website, the archive and the payment flow in the same place, beehiiv puts more of that under one plan than anything else in our newsletters & email reviews. If your money comes from selling your own courses through tagged launch funnels, read our Kit vs beehiiv comparison first.
This is an editorial review based on beehiiv's pricing page, support center and published documentation as of October 7, 2026.
The plans changed, so ignore old pricing posts
beehiiv's plans are now Free, Lite, Pro and Enterprise. Most third-party pages still list Launch, Scale and Max, and our own previous version listed a "Growth" plan. None of those names appear on beehiiv's pricing page today.
Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers and includes more than most free plans: a website with an AI website builder, a podcast feed, link-in-bio, unlimited sends and the recommendation network. Lite is where earning starts. At 1,000 subscribers it costs $59 a month, or $49 a month billed yearly, and it raises the cap to 100,000 subscribers. Pro is $109 a month, or $95 a month yearly, and it is the only self-serve plan that removes beehiiv branding.
As the list grows, so does the bill. At 10,000 subscribers, beehiiv's pricing slider shows Lite at $139 a month ($119 yearly) and Pro at $239 ($199 yearly). At 25,000, Lite is $199 ($169 yearly) and Pro is $349 ($299 yearly).
What beehiiv takes from your revenue
Paid subscriptions and digital products: beehiiv's pricing FAQ says it takes 0% of paid-subscription and digital-product revenue. You pay Stripe's standard processing fee, which beehiiv lists as 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Paid subscriptions require Lite or above. For creators comparing Substack, that 0% platform fee is the headline difference; see beehiiv vs Substack.
Ad Network: beehiiv's Ad Network FAQ (updated October 1, 2026) says the network is available on all paid plans for publishers actively sending on beehiiv, and lists no subscriber minimum. Campaigns pay on CPM (per 1,000 unique opens) or CPC (per verified unique click), and payouts land in your beehiiv wallet on the 20th of each month for the prior month. The FAQ does not say what share beehiiv keeps from advertisers. The pricing page shows an "Avg. $39/mo" ad-monetization badge; that is beehiiv's own figure with no stated methodology, so treat it as a vendor claim, not a forecast.
Paid recommendations (formerly Boosts): On October 1, 2026, beehiiv renamed Boosts to paid recommendations and merged them with free recommendations under Grow > Recommendations. Email Boosts and Direct Links were retired, and the old auto-clean step was replaced by verification tags you can act on yourself. Free recommendations work on every plan; paid recommendations need a paid plan. beehiiv's support center says a 20% fee applies to paid recommendations and is already factored into the marketplace price. Earnings sit in the beehiiv wallet until you withdraw through Stripe.
Pro adds a sponsorship storefront for selling sponsorships directly. beehiiv does not publish a fee for it on the pricing page.
Growth tools
Recommendations are the core growth loop: you recommend other newsletters after sign-up and they recommend you. Paid recommendations let you buy subscribers on a cost-per-acquisition basis, or get paid for sending them. Set a ceiling on what a subscriber is worth to you before spending, because paid acquisition only makes sense if those readers convert to revenue later. Lite also adds polls, surveys and A/B testing; Pro adds dynamic content and click-triggered automations.
Website and custom domains
Every plan, including Free, includes the website and the AI website builder. Custom domains need a paid plan, according to beehiiv's help center (article updated Oct 23, 2026) and the plan comparison table on its pricing page, though beehiiv's own pricing data still lists Custom Domains among Free plan features (all checked Oct 31, 2026). beehiiv's support docs say a custom domain can serve as your web domain, your email sending domain and your branded link domain, set up through a guided DNS flow or manually, with verification taking up to 72 hours. For creators who want deeper design control or a membership site built around long-form posts, Ghost is the alternative to check; see beehiiv vs Ghost.
Automation depth
beehiiv has email automations from Lite up, and Pro adds click-triggered automations and dynamic content. Based on the documentation, it is enough for welcome series, onboarding and paid-subscriber flows. It is not built around tag-driven product funnels the way Kit is. If you run frequent launches with branching logic, that difference matters more than any price gap.
Owning your list: export and portability
beehiiv's support center describes two subscriber exports on every plan: a quick export (email, status and tier) and a full export with custom fields and statistics. You can also export all posts, including published, archived and draft. Download links are valid for 24 hours, so grab the file when the email arrives. Combined with Stripe as the payment processor, that means your subscriber list, your archive and your paying-customer relationships can all leave with you.
Who should skip beehiiv
Skip it if your business runs on selling your own products through segmented launch sequences (Kit is built for that), if you need a fully custom site, or if you will never earn from the newsletter and are under 2,500 subscribers with no plans to grow (many free tools will do). Also skip Lite if you can't stand a "Powered by beehiiv" mark: branding removal is a Pro feature.
Editor's note
"If your newsletter is meant to be a media business, with sponsors, ads and paying readers, beehiiv is the platform we'd start on. If it's mainly the front door to your courses and products, look at Kit first."
What would change our recommendation
Branding removal on Lite, a published Ad Network revenue share, and a stable plan lineup for a year would push beehiiv's score up. A move away from the 0% take rate, or limits on exports, would pull it down.
For the full stack around your newsletter, see the guide to the best tools for newsletter writers. Our sister site BestSends covers email platforms from the email-marketer angle.
What changed (Oct 31, 2026)
- Custom domains: beehiiv's help center and the comparison table on its pricing page now put them on paid plans, so we no longer list them as a Free plan feature. beehiiv's pricing data still lists them on Free.
- Plan prices at 1,000, 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers, the 0% take rate with Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30, and the 20% paid-recommendations fee were re-checked on Oct 31, 2026 and are unchanged.
SOURCES (CHECKED OCT 7, 2026)
| Claim | Source URL | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Plans Free / Lite / Pro / Enterprise; subscriber limits 2,500 / 100,000 / 250,000 / custom | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing | 2026-10-07 |
| Lite $49/mo yearly, Pro $95/mo yearly at 1,000 subs; JSON-LD monthly prices $59 and $109 | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing | 2026-10-07 |
| Tier prices (Lite yearly 49/119/169, monthly 59/139/199; Pro yearly 95/199/299, monthly 109/239/349 at 1k/10k/25k) | Pricing slider data loaded by https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing (page script) | 2026-10-07 |
| Yearly saves up to 20% | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing | 2026-10-07 |
| 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue; Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing (FAQ) | 2026-10-07 |
| Free plan features incl. AI website builder, API excluding Send API; structured data still lists Custom Domains on Free, but the plan comparison table marks custom domains as not included on Free | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing (structured data and comparison table) | 2026-10-31 |
| Seats 1/2/10/unlimited; publications 1/3/10/custom; analytics lookback 30 days / 12 months / unlimited; branding removal Pro+ | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing | 2026-10-07 |
| Pro features: sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, RSS to send, dynamic content, Send API, click-triggered automations | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing (structured data) | 2026-10-07 |
| "Avg. $39/mo" ad monetization badge | https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing | 2026-10-07 |
| Boosts renamed paid recommendations Oct 1, 2026; Email Boosts and Direct Links retired; auto-clean removed; paid recs on paid plans | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/41790356251159 | 2026-10-07 |
| 20% fee on paid recommendations, factored into marketplace price; wallet and Stripe Express payouts | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/14194737991319 | 2026-10-07 |
| Ad Network: all paid plans, actively sending; CPM/CPC; paid 20th of month; updated Oct 1, 2026 | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/17507491038231 | 2026-10-07 |
| Custom domain for web, sending and branded links; Entri or manual setup; up to 72 hours | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/14492990172823 | 2026-10-07 |
| Custom domains available on paid plans (Plan: All Paid Plans; article updated Oct 23, 2026) | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/14492990172823-how-to-use-a-custom-domain-for-your-publication | 2026-10-31 |
| Subscriber quick/full export, post export, 24-hour links, all plans | https://www.beehiiv.com/support/article/12234988536215 | 2026-10-07 |
| Integrations: Zapier, Stripe, Shopify, Make, Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Webflow; API, Send API, webhooks | https://www.beehiiv.com/integrations | 2026-10-07 |
Prices in USD, checked on beehiiv.com/pricing on 2026-10-31. beehiiv prices paid plans by subscriber count and says yearly billing saves up to 20%.
| PLAN | PRICE | WHAT YOU GET |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, free forever | Subscriber limit: Up to 2,500; Newsletter, website (AI website builder), podcast, link-in-bio, unlimited sends, campaign analytics (30-day lookback), recommendation network (free recommendations), API (excluding Send API), 1 seat, 1 publication, beehiiv branding; custom domains need a paid plan per beehiiv's help center and comparison table, though its Free plan data still lists them (Oct 31, 2026) |
| Lite | $59/mo billed monthly, or $49/mo billed yearly | Subscriber limit: Up to 100,000; Paid subscriptions at 0% take rate, Ad Network, paid recommendations, digital products, community, email automations, polls and surveys, A/B testing, 12-month analytics, custom domains, 2 seats, 3 publications, human support |
| Pro | $109/mo billed monthly, or $95/mo billed yearly | Subscriber limit: Up to 250,000; Remove beehiiv branding, sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, RSS to send, dynamic content, click-triggered automations, Send API, advanced analytics (unlimited lookback), 10 seats, 10 publications, 24/7 priority support |
| Enterprise | Custom | Subscriber limit: Custom; SSO/SAML, dedicated IPs, customer success manager, concierge onboarding, custom rate limits |
Higher tiers (from the pricing slider on beehiiv.com/pricing):
| List size | Lite monthly | Lite yearly (per month) | Pro monthly | Pro yearly (per month) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $59 | $49 | $109 | $95 |
| 10,000 | $139 | $119 | $239 | $199 |
| 25,000 | $199 | $169 | $349 | $299 |
List prices change often. Check the vendor before you buy.
Writers and publishers who want the newsletter itself to earn through sponsors, ad network placements, paid subscriptions and cross-promotion.
Your revenue comes from selling your own courses and products through tag-driven launch funnels (Kit fits better), or you need a heavily customized site beyond beehiiv's builder. — if that's a dealbreaker, see every newsletters & email tool we've reviewed.
- Is beehiiv free?
Yes. The Free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with a website, podcast, unlimited sends and free recommendations. Paid subscriptions, the Ad Network and automations start on Lite, and beehiiv's help center puts custom domains on paid plans too.
- How much does beehiiv cost?
At 1,000 subscribers, Lite is $59/mo billed monthly or $49/mo billed yearly, and Pro is $109/mo or $95/mo yearly. At 10,000 subscribers, Lite is $139/mo and Pro is $239/mo (monthly billing). At 25,000, Lite is $199/mo and Pro is $349/mo. All USD, checked October 31, 2026.
- What happened to beehiiv's Launch, Scale and Max plans?
They no longer appear on beehiiv's pricing page. Today's plans are Free, Lite, Pro and Enterprise.
- Does beehiiv take a cut of paid subscriptions?
No. beehiiv says it takes 0% of paid-subscription and digital-product revenue. Stripe's processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, per beehiiv) still applies.
- What happened to beehiiv Boosts?
As of October 1, 2026, Boosts are called paid recommendations and live under Grow > Recommendations with free recommendations. Email Boosts and Direct Links were retired. beehiiv says a 20% fee applies to paid recommendations.
- Who can join the beehiiv Ad Network?
Publishers on any paid plan who are actively sending on beehiiv, according to beehiiv's Ad Network FAQ. It pays on CPM or CPC, monthly on the 20th.
- Can I use my own domain on beehiiv's free plan?
Not according to beehiiv's help center, which says custom domains are available on paid plans (article updated Oct 23, 2026); the comparison table on its pricing page also marks them as not included on Free. beehiiv's pricing data still lists Custom Domains among Free plan features, so check your dashboard before you count on it (all checked Oct 31, 2026). On a paid plan, one custom domain can cover your website, sending domain and branded links.
- Can I export my beehiiv subscribers?
Yes, on every plan. There is a quick export and a full export with custom fields and stats, plus a post export. Links expire after 24 hours.
The strongest all-in-one platform for creators whose newsletter is the business: website, ads, paid subscriptions at a 0% platform fee, and recommendations in one plan. Budget for Lite once you want to earn.
Editorially reviewed. An editorial evaluation of verified product information, official documentation, pricing and features, informed by Carlos Gil's professional experience. Available demos and screenshots may inform the review; documented product use is required for a hands-on label. Read our review standards.
Editorially reviewed. This review is an editorial evaluation of beehiiv's official pricing page, support center articles and published documentation, checked on October 7, 2026, and informed by Carlos Gil's professional experience. This update involved no product testing, and no earnings, growth or deliverability figure on this page comes from our own use. Vendor claims are labeled as such. The score is relative to other newsletter and email tools we cover. How we review · Disclosure
BestCreates is written and edited by Carlos Gil. Every tool is assessed against the same documented framework — the jobs creators hire it for, ease of use, pricing accuracy, support and integrations — and each review states in the open how it was assessed.
LAST UPDATED OCT 31, 2026
SIGNED BY CARLOS GIL · FOUNDER & EDITOR, THE BEST NETWORK · OUR DISCLOSURE POLICY