Kit vs beehiiv (2026): which fits the way you make money?

The short answer

Pick Kit if your income comes from things you sell: courses, templates, coaching, launches. Its tagging, sequences and visual automations are built to move a subscriber from a free download to a purchase, and it sells products natively for a flat 3.5% + 30c per transaction.

Pick beehiiv if the newsletter itself is the business: sponsors, ad network placements, paid subscriptions and a publication website. It takes 0% of paid-subscription revenue (you pay Stripe's processing only) and puts ads, recommendations and the website in one plan.

On list price, the two are closer than most comparisons suggest. At 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers, Kit Creator and beehiiv Lite cost the same on monthly billing. The real difference is what each platform is built to do once a reader arrives.

This page takes the creator angle: selling, sponsorships, paid subs and owning the list. For the pure email-marketing angle, our sister site BestSends compares beehiiv and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) for email marketers.

Kit vs beehiiv at a glance

Prices are USD list prices checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 7, 2026.

Try KitAFFILIATE · Try beehiivAFFILIATE (affiliate links)

Pricing at 1,000, 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers

Both vendors price paid plans by list size. These figures come from each vendor's own pricing calculator on October 7, 2026. Kit's annual price equals 10 months of its monthly price. beehiiv says yearly billing saves up to 20%.

Example 1: the cheapest plan that lets you automate and sell

Assumptions: you want automated welcome or launch emails and you want to charge money through the platform. On Kit that means Creator. On beehiiv it means Lite (paid subscriptions and automations start there). No promotions or add-ons. Platform branding stays on beehiiv Lite; Kit Creator removes it.

Example 2: the plan with no platform branding and multi-person teams

Assumptions: you want the platform's branding off everything and more than two team logins. On Kit, Creator already removes branding, but unlimited users need Pro. On beehiiv, branding removal requires Pro (10 seats). No promotions.

Kit is advertising 25% off the first annual year of Pro for lists up to 75,000 subscribers (10% off from 75,001 to 500,000) until November 30, 2026 (checked Nov 9, 2026), which would lower Kit's first-year Pro cost further. We left promotions out of the examples because they expire.

Example 3: staying free

Assumptions: you only send broadcasts, sell nothing through the platform, and accept platform branding. Kit's Free plan covers you up to 10,000 subscribers. beehiiv's Free plan covers you up to 2,500. Between 2,501 and 10,000 subscribers, Kit is $0 and beehiiv is at least $139/mo on monthly billing at 10,000. If you never plan to automate or sell, that gap is the biggest cost difference on this page.

Monetization paths and fees

This is the section that should decide it for most creators.

Selling your own products. Kit sells digital products, recurring subscriptions (coaching, memberships, sponsorship packages) and tips on every plan, including Free, at 3.5% + 30c per transaction. Kit's pricing page says that figure includes card processing. beehiiv lists digital products as part of the platform and says it takes 0% of digital-product revenue, so you pay Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30. If you already sell through a store like Gumroad, check each platform's integrations before moving products over.

Paid subscriptions. Kit runs paid newsletters on every plan at the same 3.5% + 30c. beehiiv requires Lite or above and takes 0%, so you pay only Stripe.

Example 4: fees on a paid newsletter. Assumptions: 200 paying readers at $5/month, billed monthly, each charge processed separately, domestic cards, Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 on beehiiv, Kit's published 3.5% + 30c all-in. Gross: $1,000/month.

• Kit: 3.5% of $1,000 = $35, plus 200 × $0.30 = $60. Total fees: $95/month.
• beehiiv: 2.9% of $1,000 = $29, plus 200 × $0.30 = $60. Total fees: $89/month, plus the Lite plan.

The per-transaction gap is small (about $6 a month here). Annual billing for subscribers shrinks the 30-cent component on both. International cards and currency conversion can change Stripe's fee on beehiiv; Kit's all-in rate avoids that variable, based on its pricing page. For a deeper paid-subscription comparison, see beehiiv vs Substack.

Sponsorships and ads. Both platforms now broker ads. Kit's Newsletter Sponsorships are open to paid-plan users who express interest; Kit's help center says pay is per unique verified click, varies by campaign, and arrives 45 days after the month the campaign ran. beehiiv's Ad Network is open to all paid plans for publishers actively sending, pays on CPM or CPC, and pays out on the 20th of each month. Neither vendor discloses its cut of advertiser spend in the help docs we checked. beehiiv Pro adds a sponsorship storefront for selling your own sponsorships. If you sell sponsorships directly, Kit lets you sell recurring sponsorship packages through its commerce tools. Our guide to monetizing expertise beyond brand deals covers the wider picture.

Cross-promotion income. Kit's Paid Recommendations carry a 23.5% Kit fee. beehiiv's paid recommendations (renamed from Boosts on October 1, 2026) carry a 20% fee that beehiiv says is built into the marketplace price.

Automation depth

Kit is the stronger automation tool for selling creators. Its visual automation builder and unlimited sequences (Creator and up) branch on tags, form sign-ups, link clicks and purchases, and conditional content is available on every plan. That's the machinery behind a launch: tag by lead magnet, nurture, pitch, pull buyers out, follow up with non-buyers.

beehiiv has automations from Lite and adds click-triggered automations and dynamic content on Pro. Based on its documentation, that's enough for welcome series, onboarding and paid-subscriber flows. It is not organized around tag-driven product funnels the way Kit is. If you launch something every quarter, this difference matters more than any price line above.

Growth tools

Both run recommendation networks with free swaps on every plan and paid options on paid plans (fees above). Kit Pro bundles a SparkLoop referral program; beehiiv has its own referral program, polls and surveys, and A/B testing from Lite. Neither vendor publishes typical results for its recommendation network, so we don't make a claim about which grows a list faster.

Website and landing pages

beehiiv is the better choice if you want your newsletter to live on a real website: every plan, including Free, includes the website and an AI website builder, and paid plans add a custom domain that can also serve as your sending and link domain (beehiiv's help center and pricing comparison table put custom domains on paid plans, though its Free plan data still lists them; checked Oct 31, 2026). Kit gives you unlimited landing pages and forms, a newsletter feed and website for your archive and products, and a custom domain on every plan. That's enough for a creator whose main site lives elsewhere, but it's not a publication site.

Deliverability (vendor claims)

Both vendors make deliverability claims; we have not measured inbox placement for either. beehiiv's pricing page lists "industry-leading deliverability" on every plan. That is beehiiv's claim. Kit Pro includes deliverability reporting by inbox provider and segment. Kit's pricing page no longer lists an Enterprise plan (checked Oct 31, 2026); its help center prices a dedicated IP at $250 a month, on request, and recommends sending at least 150,000 emails a week to sustain one. beehiiv Enterprise also includes dedicated IPs. If deliverability is a concern at scale, the useful difference is that Kit sells reporting at Pro, while beehiiv's comparable tooling sits at Enterprise per its pricing page.

Data portability: owning your list

Both pass the house test: you can leave with your list.

• Kit: CSV export with first name, email, created date, status, tags, location, attribution data and custom fields. No plan restriction listed. Link valid for five days.
• beehiiv: quick export (email, status, tier) or full export with custom fields and statistics, plus an export of all posts (published, archived, drafts). Available on all plans. Link valid for 24 hours.

Kit's tag export preserves your segmentation, which is the hard part to rebuild. beehiiv's post export preserves your archive, which matters if the newsletter is the product. Paid subscriptions on beehiiv run through your Stripe account; Kit processes sales through its own commerce system. Before you commit, ask either vendor how paying subscribers move if you leave.

Choose Kit if

• You sell your own digital products, courses, coaching or memberships and run launches.
• You need tags, sequences and branching automations behind the newsletter.
• You have up to 10,000 subscribers, don't need automation yet, and want to pay $0.
• You want platform branding off at the entry paid tier.
• You want deliverability reporting without going Enterprise.

Read the full Kit review. Try KitAFFILIATE (affiliate link)

Choose beehiiv if

• The newsletter is the business: sponsors, ad network revenue, paid subscriptions.
• You want a 0% platform fee on paid subscriptions.
• You want a full publication website and archive, free from day one, on your own domain once you're on a paid plan.
• You plan to run several publications (3 on Lite, 10 on Pro).
• You want ads to show up without selling sponsorships yourself.

Read the full beehiiv review. Try beehiivAFFILIATE (affiliate link)

Consider neither if

• You want a writing-first, community-driven platform with built-in discovery: look at Substack.
• You want to own the site and membership code entirely: look at Ghost (see beehiiv vs Ghost).
• You need cheap automation and don't sell much: look at MailerLite.
• You want a minimal, developer-friendly newsletter: look at Buttondown.
• Courses are the business and email is secondary: an all-in-one course platform like Kajabi may replace both.

What would change this recommendation

If beehiiv deepens tag-based automation, the "launches and products" case for Kit narrows. If Kit drops its commerce fee or adds a free-plan sequence, the cost case for Kit gets stronger. If either vendor publishes its ad-network share, we'll add it to the fee comparison.

For more options, see the best newsletter platforms, our guide to the best tools for newsletter writers, and every newsletters & email review.

Methodology note

Editorially reviewed. This comparison is an editorial evaluation of Kit's and beehiiv's official pricing pages and help centers, checked on October 7, 2026, and informed by Carlos Gil's professional experience. This update involved no product testing. Cost and fee figures are labeled examples computed from published list prices under the stated assumptions. Deliverability and earnings statements are vendor claims. How we review · Disclosure