beehiiv vs Substack: what you keep, who finds you, and how you leave

Editorially reviewed by Carlos Gil. Prices and policies checked on beehiiv's and Substack's official pages on 2026-10-09. This page contains an affiliate link to beehiiv; if you sign up through it, BestCreates may earn a commission at no cost to you. Substack links are plain links and earn us nothing. Commissions never change a recommendation. How we review · How we make money.

Short answer: Substack costs nothing until you earn, then keeps 10% of paid revenue for as long as you stay. beehiiv charges a monthly plan that scales with list size and keeps 0% of paid subscriptions. On our Example of $5,000 a month in paid subs, Substack's cut is $500 a month and beehiiv Lite is $119 (billed yearly), so beehiiv leaves you about $416 more each month after Stripe's fees ($381 if the 0.7% Stripe Billing fee that Substack's help center lists also applies on beehiiv). What Substack's 10% buys is a reader network: Recommendations, Notes, the app and leaderboards put you in front of people who have never heard of you. beehiiv's growth tools are writer-to-writer recommendations, paid acquisition and an ad network, not a reading app.

So the decision comes down to three things: how much you earn, how much of your growth comes from inside Substack, and how easily you could leave. Full reviews: beehiiv review and Substack review.

How we compared them

Same six criteria for both, chosen for a writer whose newsletter earns or is about to:

1. What you pay at a realistic revenue level
2. Where new readers come from (discovery and network effects)
3. Ways to earn beyond paid subscriptions
4. Website, domain and brand control
5. What you can export
6. How paying subscribers move if you leave

Fees and what you keep

Substack has one plan. Publishing is free with no subscriber limit, according to its features page. Turn on paid subscriptions and its going-paid page says "Writers keep 90% of their revenue minus credit card fees." Payments run through Stripe Connect, so Stripe's fees come on top of the 10%: Substack's help center lists 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment plus a 0.7% Stripe Billing fee on recurring payments (checked Oct 31, 2026).

beehiiv has four plans: Free (up to 2,500 subscribers), Lite (up to 100,000), Pro (up to 250,000) and Enterprise (custom). Paid subscriptions start on Lite. beehiiv's pricing FAQ says it takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue, and you pay Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. The plan price rises with your total list, free readers included:

Prices in USD from beehiiv's pricing page, checked 2026-10-09. beehiiv branding only comes off on Pro.

Example: $5,000 a month in paid subscriptions

Assumptions: 1,000 paying subscribers at $5 a month, billed monthly, all paying by US card on the web through Stripe (no iOS app subscriptions), on a list of 10,000 total subscribers (so 10% of readers pay), Stripe's published US rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per charge, no refunds, failed payments, coupons or ad income. Substack's help center publishes its Stripe fees: 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment and a 0.7% Billing fee on recurring payments, so the Substack column includes Billing. beehiiv's pricing FAQ lists only the 2.9% + $0.30, so we don't add Billing there; if it applies to your beehiiv subscriptions too, each beehiiv column costs $35 more.

The math: Stripe takes 2.9% of $5,000 ($145) plus 1,000 × $0.30 ($300), so $445 in card fees on every platform. On Substack, Stripe Billing adds 0.7% of $5,000 ($35). The difference is Substack's $500 plus that $35 against beehiiv's plan. Over a year that's about $4,990 more kept on beehiiv Lite billed yearly ($4,570 if Billing also applies on beehiiv).

If your list is bigger. At 25,000 total subscribers (a 4% paid conversion), Lite rises to $169 a month billed yearly and you keep $4,386, still $366 a month ahead of Substack ($331 if Stripe Billing also applies on beehiiv). Pro at that size ($299 yearly billing) leaves $4,256.

The break-even. Card fees are the same on both, and Substack adds the 0.7% Billing fee, so beehiiv costs less once 10.7% of your paid revenue exceeds your plan price. On a 10,000-subscriber list that's about $1,110 a month in paid revenue for Lite billed yearly, or $1,860 for Pro ($1,190 and $1,990 if Billing also applies on beehiiv). Below that, Substack's cut is cheaper than a beehiiv plan. Before you earn anything, Substack is free and beehiiv is free only up to 2,500 subscribers.

The hidden cost on both: the $0.30 per charge. It's $300 of the $445 here. Pushing readers to annual plans cuts it sharply on either platform. See how this compares with Kit, Ghost and others on the same Example in our best newsletter platforms roundup.

Price beehiiv at your list sizeAFFILIATE

Discovery and network effects

This is the real case for Substack, and it's strong. Substack's features page lists cross-publication Recommendations, Notes (a short-form social feed), category leaderboards, an explore page, personalized search, reader referrals with milestone rewards, and iOS and Android reading apps. Readers already have Substack accounts, so subscribing to one more publication takes a tap. Writers recommend each other, and Substack shows how many subscribers you gain or give through recommendations.

The trade-off is where those readers live. People who find you in Notes or the app meet you inside Substack's product, next to everyone else's. Your subscribers export with you; Notes followers who never subscribed don't, and neither does the habit of reading you in the Substack app. The more of your growth comes from the network, the more leaving costs you.

beehiiv works differently. Its recommendation network (on every plan, including Free) lets publications recommend each other at sign-up. Since October 1, 2026, what beehiiv used to call Boosts are paid recommendations: you pay other publications per subscriber they send, or get paid to recommend others. beehiiv's help center says paid recommendations are on paid plans, a 20% fee applies (already built into the marketplace price), and Email Boosts and Direct Links are retired. Some third-party comparisons still describe the old Boosts setup.

What beehiiv doesn't advertise is a consumer reading network. Its pricing and support pages we checked describe no reader app or feed comparable to Substack's. On beehiiv, growth comes from your own channels, other writers and paid acquisition, which means you can measure and buy it but not get it for free.

Ways to earn beyond paid subscriptions

beehiiv has more. Its Ad Network is open to anyone on a paid plan who is actively sending, and pays per open (CPM) or per click (CPC), on the 20th of the month according to its help center. Pro adds a sponsorship storefront for selling your own ad slots, plus webinars and coaching. The pricing page shows an "Avg." monthly ad earnings badge; beehiiv doesn't explain how it's calculated, so treat it as a vendor figure. beehiiv doesn't disclose its share of Ad Network revenue.

Substack focuses on reader revenue: monthly and annual plans, founding member tiers, free trials, coupons, gift and group subscriptions, and pledges before you go paid, per its features page. That page lists no ad network or sponsorship marketplace. You can sell sponsorships yourself, but Substack doesn't broker them.

Website, domain and brand

Both connect a custom domain. On beehiiv it needs a paid plan, according to its help center (updated Oct 23, 2026) and the comparison table on its pricing page, though beehiiv's pricing data still lists Custom Domains among Free plan features; one domain can cover your website, sending address and branded links. Substack charges a one-time $50 to connect a domain you own, per its help center. Its features page says you can also buy a domain through Substack, but its custom-domain help article (updated Oct 30, 2026) says Substack doesn't sell domains. All checked Oct 31, 2026.

beehiiv includes a website builder and landing pages; branding removal requires Pro. Substack's features page lists a visual theme editor, section layouts, static pages, RSS feeds, sitemaps, SEO metadata, Google site verification and GA4. Your Substack site still looks and works like Substack, which helps readers trust it and limits how far you can make it your own brand.

Exports and ownership

Both let you leave with your list and archive.

• Substack: its features page says you can export your full publication data at any time: posts (CSV and HTML), subscriber list and stats. Its terms say subscriber lists remain yours.
• beehiiv: quick or full subscriber exports (full adds custom fields and stats) and an export of all posts, on every plan, per its help center. Download links expire after 24 hours.

Moving paying subscribers

This is where the platforms really differ, and where the most important claims come from competitors, so we've labeled them.

Leaving Substack. Paid subscriptions sit in a Stripe account connected through Substack. Two documented routes exist:

• Ghost's route (same Stripe account). Ghost's Substack migration guide tells you to connect the same Stripe account to Ghost, and says: "Substack will continue to take 10% fees on your existing paid subscriptions." Ghost offers to help get the fees removed. That's Ghost's account of a competitor's billing, and we couldn't confirm it on a Substack page, so ask Substack before you migrate. See Ghost.
• beehiiv's route (new Stripe account). beehiiv's Substack migration guide copies your customers from the Substack-connected Stripe account into a new beehiiv-connected one, then recreates each subscription at the reader's existing price. It then says you must pause or cancel paid billing in Substack, or subscribers get charged twice. The guide doesn't say whether Substack's 10% follows the recreated subscriptions. Its structure suggests not, but beehiiv doesn't state it, so confirm before you rely on it.

iOS subscribers don't move on either route. Substack's features page lists Apple in-app subscriptions. beehiiv's guide notes these live in the App Store, not Stripe, so they can't be transferred: you comp those readers until their paid period ends and ask them to cancel in the App Store and resubscribe. beehiiv's guide also says Apple's cut is an additional 30% on top of Substack's 10%. That's beehiiv's claim; Substack doesn't publish an iOS fee on the pages we checked.

Leaving beehiiv. Paid subscriptions run on Stripe. We didn't find a beehiiv doc on moving paying subscribers out. Buttondown's paid-subscriptions page says it can take over subscriptions from beehiiv, Ghost or Substack by connecting the same Stripe account, without readers re-entering cards (Buttondown's claim).

Our read: both let you own your list. Substack makes paying readers harder to move, because of the post-migration fee claim and iOS subscriptions. If you plan to grow big enough that you might leave, that's worth weighing on day one. Our Substack alternatives page covers where writers go.

beehiiv vs Substack at a glance

Read more: beehiiv review · Substack review

Which should you choose?

Choose Substack if:

• You're starting from zero and the reader network is your main growth channel.
• You'd rather pay nothing until you earn than pay a monthly plan from day one.
• Your paid revenue is under roughly $1,000 to $2,000 a month, where 10% costs less than a beehiiv plan.

Visit Substack

Choose beehiiv if:

• You earn, or expect to earn, more than a couple of thousand dollars a month from paid subs, where a flat plan beats a percentage.
• You want income beyond subscriptions: an ad network, your own sponsorship storefront, digital products.
• You bring your own audience (social, podcast, YouTube) and don't need Substack's network to find readers.
• You want your own domain and brand on the site from the first post.

Try beehiivAFFILIATE

Consider neither if:

• You want to own the site and membership stack outright with no platform cut: compare beehiiv vs Ghost.
• Your newsletter sells your own courses and products through launch funnels: see Kit vs beehiiv.
• You want the full field priced on the same Example: our best newsletter platforms roundup covers six.

What would change this: if Substack lowered its 10% or confirmed in writing that the fee stops on subscriptions that leave, its portability gap narrows. If beehiiv added a reader-facing discovery app or put paid subscriptions on its Free plan, Substack's case for beginners weakens. If beehiiv published its Ad Network revenue share, we could price ad income into the Example.