beehiiv Review 2026: Still One of the Most Complete Newsletter Platforms, Now With New Plan Names, Higher Mid-Tier Prices and Terms Worth Reading
beehiiv lets you write, send and grow a newsletter, then add a website, a podcast, a community and paid products under one login, and it still takes 0% of your paid subscription revenue. On October 1, 2026 it renamed and repriced every plan: Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers, Lite starts at $49 and Pro at $95 a month on yearly billing, and both climb with your list. At 10,000 subscribers Lite now costs $139 a month billed monthly, up from $109. Before you commit, know three rules: every fee is non-refundable, your list is counted across all your publications, and existing customers move to the new prices at their first renewal on or after November 1, 2026.
There are no affiliate links in this review. Every beehiiv link goes straight to beehiiv.com or its help center.
| Made by | beehiiv Inc., New York; founded 2021; cofounder and CEO Tyler Denk |
| What it is | Newsletter platform with website builder, podcast hosting, community, digital products, ad network and an MCP server |
| Plans | Free to 2,500 subs; Lite from $49; Pro from $95 a month yearly ($59 / $109 monthly) |
| Priced by | Active subscribers summed across every publication in your account |
| Best for | Creators and small media teams who want to grow, run ads or sell subscriptions from one place |
If you want one place to write, grow and earn from a newsletter, beehiiv is still the most complete option among the platforms we compared (Substack, Ghost and MailerLite). It is no longer the low-cost choice in the middle tiers, and its terms deserve a careful read.
“We don't grow beehiiv by just raising prices.”
That line comes from beehiiv's cofounder and CEO, Tyler Denk, in the October 1, 2026 post that raised most of its paid prices. Both halves of the sentence are true. beehiiv has kept adding real product: a website builder, podcast hosting, a community, digital products with a 0% platform fee, an ad network it says pays creators more than $1M a month, and an MCP server so Claude or Cursor can work inside your account. And it did raise prices: on monthly billing, Lite at 10,000 subscribers went from $109 (the old Scale plan) to $139, and at 100,000 subscribers Pro went from $459 (the old Max plan) to $699.
The core still earns its reputation. The free plan is generous for a newsletter that is just starting (2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends), the growth tools (referrals, the recommendation network, paid recommendations) are built in, and taking 0% of paid subscriptions beats Substack's 10% once your paid revenue passes about $1,190 a month on Lite at 10,000 subscribers. Our concerns are about money and control: fees that are never refundable, a tier that is set by every subscriber across all your publications, an Ad Network that grants beehiiv broad rights to profile your readers, and payouts that only work where Stripe does.
One account, priced by the size of your whole list, with five products on every plan and two separate money pipes.
beehiiv's pricing page puts it plainly: “All plans include” Newsletter, Website, Podcast, Community and Digital Products. What changes as you move from Free to Lite to Pro is limits, support and advanced features. Your plan type decides the features; your plan tier decides the price, and the tier is set by your total active subscribers across every publication in the workspace. Money flows two ways: paid subscriptions and digital products go to your own Stripe account, while Ad Network, paid recommendation and sponsorship earnings land in a beehiiv Wallet connected to a Stripe Express account.
New plan names on October 1, higher prices for most tiers, a new 250,000-subscriber ceiling, and a renewal deadline of November 1 for existing customers.
If you last looked at beehiiv before October, the names you remember are gone. Per beehiiv's announcement of October 1, 2026, Launch became Free, Scale became Lite, Max became Pro, and Enterprise kept its name. New prices applied to new customers from October 1. For existing customers, “nothing changes until your first renewal on or after November 1, 2026.” Monthly customers get “at least 30 days' notice before your first bill at the new price”; annual customers keep their current price through the end of their current term.
What did the old plans cost? An archived copy of beehiiv.com/pricing from September 23, 2026 shows Scale at $43 a month on annual billing ($517 a year) and Max at $96 ($1,151 a year) for 1,000 subscribers, and $49 and $109 on monthly billing. Comparing that page with today's, the increases are uneven: small at the bottom, large at the top, and close to zero for Pro at 1,000 and 2,500 subscribers.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Subscribers | Scale → Lite (monthly) | Change | Max → Pro (monthly) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $49 → $59 | +20% | $109 → $109 | 0% |
| 2,500 | $69 → $79 | +14% | $149 → $149 | 0% |
| 5,000 | $89 → $109 | +22% | $169 → $199 | +18% |
| 10,000 | $109 → $139 | +28% | $219 → $239 | +9% |
| 25,000 | $169 → $199 | +18% | $289 → $349 | +21% |
| 50,000 | $249 → $299 | +20% | $379 → $469 | +24% |
| 75,000 | $289 → $389 | +35% | $419 → $589 | +41% |
| 100,000 | $329 → $469 | +43% | $459 → $699 | +52% |
Monthly billing, USD per month. Old prices from the archived page of Sep 23, 2026; new prices from beehiiv.com/pricing on Oct 26, 2026. On yearly billing the changes are smaller at the low end (Pro at 1,000 subscribers went from $96 to $95) and similar at the top (Pro at 100,000 went from $404 to $599).
Two more changes matter. First, Pro now reaches 250,000 subscribers without a sales call; before, the self-serve plans stopped at 100,000 and pushed you to Enterprise. Second, beehiiv moved some accounts up a tier: “Some accounts had grown past the tier they were billed for, and as part of this update, we've moved those accounts to the tier that best matches their current subscriber count.” That new tier is also billed from the first renewal on or after November 1, 2026, and beehiiv notes you can remove subscribers to drop back down.
A fast-growing, venture-style platform whose scale claims are its own, with one independent rating to check them against.
beehiiv was founded in 2021 by early Morning Brew employees, and its about page now reports, as of Q2 2026, 170K+ publications, 450M+ unique readers, 75B+ emails sent all time and $60M+ earned by users. Those are the vendor's counts: a publication is not a paying customer, and a reader is not a user of the product. The October 1 post adds “over 5 billion emails every single month”, more than $1M a month paid to creators through the Ad Network, and a 99.3% delivery rate. Delivered means accepted by the receiving server, which is not the same as landing in the inbox.
Two more market facts. There is no beehiiv-published app in the US App Store; the apps that come up for “beehiiv” are third-party analytics tools, and the pricing table describes the community app as a PWA (a web app you add to your home screen). And the October price change drew public pushback: trade press coverage (PPC Land, October 8, 2026, citing The Verge of October 2) reported creator complaints on Bluesky, Threads and Reddit, while noting that a handful of posts does not prove churn.
People like how much is built in; the 2026 complaints are about the price change, the free plan's new limits and unwanted email.
Independent review data for beehiiv is modest but more positive than for many SaaS tools. On Oct 26, 2026 the Trustpilot profile for beehiiv.com showed a TrustScore of 3.9 from 412 reviews (205 in the past 12 months), with 66% five-star and 23% one-star. The profile is claimed (October 2023) and carries a “Paid Trustpilot subscription” label. Trustpilot notes the company has no recent history of asking for reviews, so reviews “may not be representative”, and that beehiiv replied to 95% of negative reviews, typically within a week. That is a split picture: most reviewers are happy, a large minority is angry, and few sit in the middle. It is also far from the “4.9/5 from 28,479 customers” badge on beehiiv's homepage, which does not name its source. G2 and Capterra are not quoted here.
“It's really good newsletter/blog platform in all aspects, but recently they significantly increased the pricing”
“navigation & text editing a bit clunky / you raised my price after one month!”
Built a site on the free plan in July 2026, then saw the tier restructuring cut a limit: “Shrinking a limit by 95% on accounts that have already built around it”.
Likes “the interface, easy to use and there is even an ai that you can talk to!”
“This company is so easy to deal with. From the tools provided, the excellency of the agents.”
“We receive more than a dozen spam emails from Beehiiv every day”
The patterns repeat. Praise: one login for newsletter, site and podcast; an easy editor; a helpful in-app AI agent; and keeping 100% of paid subscription revenue before Stripe. Frustration: the October price change arriving soon after sign-up for some, the free plan's tighter limits, and an editor some find clunky. A separate stream of one-star reviews comes from people who receive newsletters sent through beehiiv and did not want them; beehiiv's help center points them to the footer unsubscribe link and an “I did not sign up for this” button that flags the sender. On Hacker News, mentions are few: one blogger on beehiiv said its locale detection overrode the publication's language settings (item 49632026), and in a thread about Automattic another commenter suggested Substack, beehiiv and Ghost for a blog (item 49861584).
Free to 2,500 subscribers, then Lite or Pro priced by your total list, with a smaller yearly discount than the pricing FAQ suggests.
Free
up to 2,500 subscribers
- Unlimited sends, 1 publication, 1 seat
- Website with 1 custom page, no custom domain
- 1 digital product, podcast to 5,000 downloads
- Support: beehiiv Agent (AI)
Lite
a month yearly at 1,000 subs; $59 monthly. $119 / $139 at 10,000
- Custom domain, 3 publications, 2 seats
- Paid subscriptions (1 tier), Ad Network
- 10 live automations, MCP write access
- Up to 100,000 subscribers
Pro
a month yearly at 1,000 subs; $109 monthly. $199 / $239 at 10,000
- Remove branding, 10 seats, 10 publications
- Unlimited paid tiers, sponsorship storefront
- Webinars and coaching, RSS to Send
- 24/7 priority support, up to 250,000 subs
Enterprise
through sales, any size
- SSO / SAML, audit logs, dedicated IPs
- No-training / zero-retention AI option
- S3 data sync, customer success manager
- Beyond 250,000 subscribers, per beehiiv
The price ladder below is the whole slider. Note where plans stop: Free disappears above 2,500 subscribers, Lite above 100,000, and Pro above 250,000. Because the tier counts active subscribers across all publications in your account, a second newsletter with 3,000 readers adds to the same bill.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Subscribers | Lite yearly | Lite monthly | Pro yearly | Pro monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 2,500 | Free plan available ($0) | |||
| 1,000 | $49 | $59 | $95 | $109 |
| 2,500 | $69 | $79 | $129 | $149 |
| 5,000 | $95 | $109 | $169 | $199 |
| 10,000 | $119 | $139 | $199 | $239 |
| 25,000 | $169 | $199 | $299 | $349 |
| 50,000 | $249 | $299 | $399 | $469 |
| 75,000 | $329 | $389 | $499 | $589 |
| 100,000 | $399 | $469 | $599 | $699 |
| 150,000 | not offered | not offered | $689 | $799 |
| 200,000 | not offered | not offered | $779 | $899 |
| 250,000+ | not offered | not offered | $869 | $999 |
USD per month. Yearly prices are shown by beehiiv as a monthly figure; the page does not print the annual total (for example $119 a month is about $1,428 a year).
What each plan actually limits
The compare table is where the plans separate. Free has 1 seat, 1 guest author, 1 publication and a 30-day analytics window; Lite gives 2 seats, 3 publications and 12 months; Pro 10 seats, 10 publications and unlimited history. Removing beehiiv branding needs Pro. Support runs from the beehiiv Agent on Free to “Standard” on Lite and “Priority” on Pro. Custom domains, custom HTML, A/B testing and publishing to segments start at Lite; newsletter lists, RSS to Send, audio newsletters and dynamic content need Pro.
One claim on the page does not survive the arithmetic. The pricing FAQ says “Yearly billing saves up to 20% compared with paying month to month.” Across all 19 Lite and Pro price points on the slider, the largest saving we can compute is 16.9% (Lite at 1,000 subscribers, $49 against $59). The CEO's post is closer: “Paying annually now gets you up to two months free,” which is 16.7%. Most tiers save 13% to 15%.
The free trial is a Pro trial with brakes on
New accounts get a 14-day trial of Pro with no card. During it the account is technically on Free with temporary Pro access, and beehiiv sets trial limits: one post per day, one podcast show, 10 live automations, one guest author. Custom domains, paid subscriptions, paid recommendations, extra seats and extra publications are held back until you pay. If you do not upgrade, you stay on Free; automations, webhooks and the Send API switch off and custom pages are unpublished.
Four setups, priced line by line: beehiiv is free for a small list, fair for a paid newsletter, and expensive the moment growth pushes you into the next tier.
These examples are arithmetic on beehiiv's published prices on Oct 26, 2026, for invented but typical newsletters. Stripe's US card rate is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card payment (stripe.com/us/pricing); beehiiv's FAQ cites the same figure. Taxes, international cards (+1.5% at Stripe) and refunds are excluded.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Setup | What you buy | Per month | Per year | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Hobby newsletter, 1,800 readers, wants its own domain | Free is $0 but has no custom domain; Lite at the 2,500 tier | $69 yearly, $79 monthly | about $828 | Ghost Starter is $15 a month yearly with a free custom domain, for up to 1,000 members |
| B. Paid newsletter, 10,000 subscribers, 400 pay $8 a month ($3,200) | Lite $119 yearly + Stripe 400 × (2.9% of $8 + 30¢) = $212.80 | $331.80 (10.4% of revenue) | about $3,982 | Add $22.40 if Stripe's 0.7% Billing fee applies; beehiiv's pages do not say |
| C. Free newsletter run on ads, 25,000 subscribers | Lite at the 25,000 tier | $169 yearly, $199 monthly | about $2,028 | beehiiv's own “Avg.” ad estimate at this tier is $180 a month; Pro ($299) is not covered |
| D. Buying growth: 1,000 new subscribers through paid recommendations | CPA of $2.50 each; the recommender sees $2.00 after beehiiv's 20% fee | $2,500 one-off, of which $500 is the fee | plus $600 a year | Going from 10,000 to 11,000 moves Lite from the $119 to the $169 tier |
What the numbers say. Against Substack, beehiiv's 0% platform fee wins once paid revenue is large enough to cover the plan: on Lite at 10,000 subscribers that is $1,190 a month ($119 ÷ 10%), on Pro $1,990. Below that, Substack's free plan with a 10% cut is cheaper. Ghost's Publisher plan is $31 a month cheaper than Lite at 10,000 members on yearly billing and also takes no platform fee, but it has no ad network or paid recommendation marketplace. The biggest hidden cost on beehiiv is the tier jump: the tiers are wide (10,000, then 25,000), so the first subscriber over a line costs you the whole next step. beehiiv's help center offers an “Auto-upgrade my plan tier” switch and warns that without it, “sends to your subscribers may be delayed when you go over your plan limits.”
Fees that are never refunded, a tier set by your whole account, broad rights over your readers' data if you run ads, and payouts that depend on Stripe.
Read these before you pay, and before you migrate a list. The Terms of Use on beehiiv.com were last modified October 6, 2026; earlier versions from July 16, 2026, April 30, 2026 and May 15, 2024 are linked at the bottom of the page.
1. No refunds, no proration
Section 5 of the Terms is short: “All fees are non-refundable.” If you cancel, you keep access until the end of the term, but “you will not be eligible for a prorated refund of any portion of the subscription fee paid for the then-current subscription period.” The help article “Am I eligible for a refund?” (updated October 10, 2026) adds that “All sales are final upon subscription” and lists cases it will not refund, including non-usage, forgetting to cancel before the next billing cycle and purchases made in error. The one contractual exception is in Section 3: if beehiiv materially reduces core functionality during your paid term and you are materially affected, your “exclusive remedy” is to cancel and get a pro-rated refund of prepaid fees. Use the free 14-day trial to decide, and think twice before paying a year up front for a list you are not sure about.
2. Your tier counts every subscriber in the account
Per the help article on plan tiers, “Subscriber limits and plan tiers apply to your whole account, not to each publication.” Two newsletters with 3,000 and 2,000 active subscribers make a 5,000-subscriber account. Combined with wide tiers, this is how a small side project can move your main newsletter's bill up a step. Cleaning inactive subscribers is the lever beehiiv itself suggests.
3. Running ads grants beehiiv wide rights over your readers' data
This is the clause most buyers will never read. If you participate in the Ad Network or buy beehiiv data offerings, Section 6 of the Terms says you grant beehiiv the right to build “Subscriber Profiles” of your readers; to “Observe and record the behavior of Your Users across any of your publications hosted on the beehiiv platform (as well as any publications hosted on the beehiiv platform for other publishers)”; and to “Enrich Subscriber Profiles with data obtained from reputable third-party data providers”, including industry, job function, employer size and location, for advertiser targeting. beehiiv commits not to disclose identifying data to third parties except in aggregated, anonymized form, and you must have the consents your readers' privacy laws require. The same clause was already in the July 16, 2026 version. If your audience is privacy-sensitive, decide on the Ad Network with this in mind.
beehiiv's Privacy Policy (also last modified October 6, 2026) adds context: some of its disclosures of personal information count as a “sale” or “sharing” under California law, to “advertising partners and analytics providers”, and it also “sell[s]” or “share[s]” personal information “via disclosures to our Customers.” California residents can opt out through “Your Privacy Choices”.
4. You own your content, and license it broadly
The Terms open the ownership section with “First and foremost, you own what you create.” The license you give beehiiv for published content is still wide: “limited, royalty-free, sublicensable, non-exclusive, worldwide”, covering your content and “your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your Content”, for use with the Services “including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all published Content.” You keep “the right to have your Content removed”. Your subscriber list is yours to export as CSV on every plan (see the exit section).
5. Affiliate-first newsletters and bought lists are not welcome
The Acceptable Use Policy (last modified July 16, 2026) allows “the occasional use of affiliate links”, but “Content created primarily for affiliate marketing or lead generation purposes are not permitted on beehiiv.” Purchased lists, rented or co-registration lists and addresses harvested from websites are banned, and beehiiv “may request documentation showing affirmative consent”. If your newsletter is a deals or affiliate roundup, read this policy first.
6. Liability is capped, disputes go to New York, and free accounts can be reclaimed
beehiiv's total liability is capped at “THE GREATER OF (A) THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF ALL FEES PAYABLE TO BEEHIIV FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS” before the claim, “OR (B) ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.” Disputes go to courts in New York City under New York law, with class-action and jury waivers, and a claim must be brought “WITHIN ONE YEAR”. On a free account, “we may cancel your account and reclaim the subdomain after a period of inactivity”, with generally at least 30 days' notice. If a free newsletter matters to you, keep sending and keep your own export.
7. Where beehiiv's own pages disagree
| Topic | What the pages say |
|---|---|
| Yearly discount | Pricing FAQ: “saves up to 20%”. CEO post: “up to two months free” (16.7%). The slider's best case is 16.9%. |
| Wallet minimum deposit | “Using the beehiiv Wallet” (updated Oct 1, 2026): “The minimum deposit is $50.” Paid incoming recommendations article (updated Oct 21, 2026): “$20 is the minimum that you are able to deposit.” |
| Ad offers you see | “Using the beehiiv Ad Network” says “up to 7 offers at any time” in one section and “up to 15 offers at a time” in its key-limits list. |
| Sending through MCP | “Getting started with the beehiiv MCP” (updated Jun 29, 2026): posts “must be published from the app”. “What you can do with the beehiiv MCP” (updated Oct 4, 2026): Pro and Enterprise can schedule and send posts through the MCP. |
Match your situation to one line.
The editor gets you started; the reason to pick beehiiv is the growth and money tooling built around it.
beehiiv's editor is a block editor with templates, custom fields, A/B testing and polls on Lite, and the “what you see is exactly what lands in the inbox” promise from the October post. It is good, but most platforms can send a newsletter. What sets beehiiv apart is that growth and income live in the same account: a referral program (Lite and up), a free recommendation network (all plans), paid recommendations, paid subscriptions with a 0% platform fee, digital products, an ad network, and on Pro a sponsorship storefront for selling your own ads.
“The best editor in email just got a whole lot better...”, official beehiiv YouTube channel (@beehiiv), embedded on beehiiv.com/features/editor.
The Ad Network: claim an ad, publish it, get paid on the 20th
On any paid plan you browse a marketplace of offers ranked for your publication, claim up to five at a time, and must publish a claimed ad within five days (120 hours). The ad creative cannot be edited, though you can add your own intro; a post can carry up to three ads, at most one with a logo. Pay is CPM (per 1,000 unique opens) or CPC. CPC is now paid on “payable clicks”, a quality-weighted count within a 72-hour window that “won't line up one-to-one” with verified clicks. Earnings reach your Wallet on the 20th of the following month. The Ad Network only works for newsletters sent through beehiiv, and you can still run your own sponsors.
beehiiv also embeds an official walkthrough of direct sponsorships, the Pro feature for selling your own ad slots:
“Introducing: Direct Sponsorships”, official beehiiv YouTube channel (@beehiiv), embedded on beehiiv.com/features/direct-sponsorships.
Paid recommendations (formerly Boosts) carry a 20% fee
beehiiv has renamed Boosts to paid recommendations, retired Email Boosts and Direct Links, and replaced the old auto-clean with verification tags (help article updated October 21, 2026). The economics did not change: you set a cost per verified subscriber (CPA), and “A 20% fee covers operational and Stripe transaction costs and is already factored into the marketplace price”; beehiiv's own example is a $2.50 CPA that pays the recommending publisher $2. Funding goes through the Wallet, deposits are non-refundable, and “Once funds are transferred from your earnings to available funds in your Wallet, they cannot be reversed or withdrawn.”
Paid subscriptions and digital products: 0% to beehiiv
Paid subscriptions run through your own Stripe account; beehiiv takes 0% on Lite and Pro, and Free cannot sell subscriptions at all. Lite allows one paid tier, Pro unlimited tiers, plus group subscriptions and paid trials. Digital products (guides, templates, coaching, webinars) also carry a 0% platform fee: Free can list one product, Lite three, Pro unlimited, and coaching and webinars are Pro-only.
“Introducing: Paid Newsletters”, official beehiiv YouTube channel (@beehiiv), embedded as “See Paid Subscriptions in Action” on beehiiv.com/features/paid-subscriptions. An older launch video; plan names in it may differ from today's.
Import, warm up the domain, grow with recommendations, then switch on money once the list is real.
An illustrative sequence built from beehiiv's help center and policies, Oct 26, 2026, not a record of a JAVIS launch.
An in-app AI agent on every plan, and an MCP server that lets Claude or Cursor work in your account, with write access from Lite and sending from Pro.
beehiiv's AI shows up in three places. The in-editor AI (Lite and up) helps write and edit posts. The beehiiv Agent lives inside the app: on Free it answers questions and reads your data, and it is the main support path; on Lite it can make changes; on Pro and Enterprise it can also schedule and send posts. The beehiiv MCP server connects the same abilities to outside AI tools; the help center names Claude, Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, and the October post mentions ChatGPT. AI usage is described only loosely on the pricing page (“Limited”, “Elevated”, “5x Lite”), with no published credit counts.
The MCP is useful and limited in sensible ways: automations can be built through it but must be activated in the app, website page bodies cannot be edited (only metadata and redirects), and sponsorship data and paywall content are read-only. It acts with your workspace role's permissions. If you use Claude, our Claude MCP connectors guide explains how connectors and their permissions work, and the Claude Code setup guide covers the terminal route. One more line matters for privacy: the compare table lists “No-training / zero-retention” and “BYO model key” as Enterprise-only, so lower plans do not get those options.
“Introducing: beehiiv MCP”, official beehiiv YouTube channel (@beehiiv), embedded on beehiiv.com/features/artificial-intelligence.
An API on every plan, webhooks and the Send API higher up, and four different Stripe connections to keep straight.
API access is on every plan, with rate limits described as Low, Standard and High. Webhooks start at Lite (3 endpoints; unlimited on Pro), and the Send API, the WordPress integration and webhooks on purchase events are Pro features. To generate API keys, or to use the Ad Network, paid recommendations or direct sponsorships, you first complete Stripe Identity Verification. Common glue such as adding new Stripe customers as subscribers runs through Zapier, which beehiiv's help center documents (our Zapier review prices that). If you host a podcast on beehiiv, its downloads are capped by plan: 5,000 a month on Free, 15,000 on Lite, 50,000 on Pro.
Outside the US, check Stripe first. beehiiv's Ad Network FAQ is direct: payouts need a Stripe Express account, and “beehiiv does not support alternative payment processors (such as PayPal, Wise, or PriyoPay)”. If Stripe Express is not available where you live, “you won't be able to participate in the Ad Network at this time, regardless of your plan.” Paid subscriptions and paid products also need your own Stripe account. On Oct 26, 2026, Stripe's global availability page did not list countries such as Vietnam or the Philippines, so creators there can publish on beehiiv but cannot use its main money features through Stripe.
SOC 2 paperwork, 2FA for everyone, AI-only support on Free, and a clean CSV exit for your posts and subscribers.
beehiiv's trust center lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report and an annual penetration test (both on request) and continuous monitoring through Secureframe; JAVIS has not reviewed those reports. Two-factor authentication and data exports are on every plan; SSO/SAML, audit logs, granular roles, dedicated IPs and the AI no-training option are Enterprise-only. beehiiv is headquartered in the United States, and its Privacy Policy says recipients of personal information are in the United States “and elsewhere in the world”, with Standard Contractual Clauses “where appropriate”.
Support. On paid plans and during the trial you file tickets from inside the account. On Free, outside a trial, the beehiiv Agent (AI) “is your primary support path”, and “Phone support and a direct email address for support are not currently available.” A product screenshot inside the same help article shows the Support Squad card saying response times vary from 12 to 36 hours. Pro advertises 24/7 priority support.
Exit. Posts (published, archived and drafts) and subscribers export as CSV from Settings, in a Quick or Full version, on every plan; download links are valid for 24 hours, and an API export exists but is gated behind a support request. If you downgrade to Free, your content stays, automations switch off, webhooks are disabled, redirects stop and published custom pages are unpublished; already-connected custom domains keep working, but you cannot add a new one. Deleting the account is irreversible and requires removing custom domains first. Ad Network and recommendation earnings are still paid after a downgrade or closure.
Creators who want to grow and earn from one account, and who live where Stripe works.
- New newsletters that can live on a beehiiv address up to 2,500 readers
- Paid newsletters earning more than about $1,200 a month
- Ad-supported newsletters that want a built-in ad marketplace
- Creators adding a podcast, community or digital products
- Small media teams needing up to 10 seats and 10 publications (Pro)
- Operators who want Claude or Cursor working in the account via MCP
- A tiny list that needs a custom domain on the lowest budget
- Affiliate-first or lead-generation newsletters
- Creators in countries Stripe does not cover who need to earn
- Readers' data that must not be profiled for ads
- Teams that need SSO, audit logs or AI no-training below Enterprise
- Anyone who wants refunds or phone support
Likely plan by work pattern: a hobby list fits Free; a solo writer with a domain and a paid tier fits Lite; a brand with several newsletters, sponsors and a team fits Pro; above 250,000 subscribers or with security requirements, Enterprise.
Nine things to check before you rely on it.
Lite at 10,000 subscribers: $109 to $139 a month on monthly billing; Pro at 100,000: $459 to $699.
“All fees are non-refundable”; no proration when you cancel.
Every publication's subscribers count toward one tier; tiers jump in wide steps.
Ad Network users grant cross-publication tracking and third-party enrichment of reader profiles.
No PayPal or Wise; countries without Stripe Express cannot use the Ad Network.
AI agent only on Free; no phone or support email on any plan.
Free now has no custom domain and 1 publication; the old Launch plan included custom domains and 3 publications.
20% on paid recommendations; Wallet deposits non-refundable.
No affiliate-first content, no bought lists; $100 or 12-month-fee liability cap; New York courts.
Priced from each vendor's page on Oct 26, 2026; the plans count different things, so they are not like-for-like.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| If you need | Look at | At 10,000 subscribers | What you get | Platform cut on paid subs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A paid publication with a website, no ad marketplace | Ghost (Ghost(Pro)) | $88 a month yearly (Publisher) | 3 staff users, custom themes, paid subscriptions; Starter $15 yearly includes a free custom domain up to 1,000 members | “No payment fees” |
| The cheapest start for a paid newsletter | Substack | $0 | Free publishing at any size; one-time $50 for a custom domain | 10% plus Stripe (2.9% + $0.30, Billing 0.7%) |
| Email marketing and automations first | MailerLite | $80.10 / $116.10 a month yearly | Comfort (100,000 emails a month) or Power (unlimited emails); Free to 250 subscribers | Not compared here |
| Everything in one place, ads included | beehiiv | $119 / $199 a month yearly | Lite or Pro; newsletter, site, podcast, community, Ad Network | 0% plus Stripe |
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is a common alternative too; its current prices are not quoted here. None of these competitors has a JAVIS review yet.
beehiiv or Substack for a paid newsletter?
This is the comparison most writers make. Substack is free until you earn, then keeps 10%; beehiiv charges a plan and keeps 0%. The table below uses setup B from the real-cost section. If you also want ads, a website you control and a podcast in one dashboard, beehiiv does more; if you want a reader network and an app that brings you subscribers for free, Substack's model is the reason people choose it.
| Question | beehiiv (Lite) | Substack | Ghost (Publisher) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan at 10,000 | $119 yearly | $0 | $88 yearly |
| Platform cut | 0% | 10% | “No payment fees” |
| $3,200 paid revenue: cost | $331.80 | $555.20 | $300.80 |
| Built-in ad marketplace | Yes (paid plans) | No | No |
Costs include Stripe card fees of $212.80 on 400 payments of $8; Substack also includes Stripe Billing at 0.7%. Ghost's card fees are assumed equal.
This review has no affiliate links.
JAVIS has no affiliate relationship with beehiiv, so every beehiiv link here goes straight to beehiiv.com, its pricing page, its Terms of Use or its help center, without tracking parameters. The score and the drawbacks would be the same either way.
How this review was put together: beehiiv's public pricing page (every slider tier, both billing options and the full compare table), Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, help center articles, blog and official videos; an Internet Archive copy of the pricing page from Sep 23, 2026; Ghost, MailerLite and Substack pricing pages; Stripe's pricing and global availability pages; Trustpilot; and Hacker News, all as of Oct 26, 2026. JAVIS did not create a beehiiv account, send email or run ads, so nothing here describes deliverability, editor speed or support response times from our own use. Screenshots show public pages only; product interface images appear only where beehiiv publishes them in its own help articles or marketing pages.
Writing, designing, automating and connecting AI to a newsletter? These reviews cover the tools around it.
Each card opens a published JAVIS review, routed by where you are.
Questions people ask before committing
Is beehiiv free?
Yes, up to 2,500 subscribers on the Free plan, with unlimited sends, one publication and a website on a beehiiv address. Custom domains, paid subscriptions, the Ad Network and automations need Lite, from $49 a month on yearly billing ($59 monthly) at 1,000 subscribers.
What happened to Launch, Scale and Max?
On October 1, 2026 they were renamed Free, Lite and Pro, with new prices for new customers. Existing customers keep their current price until their first renewal on or after November 1, 2026; monthly customers get at least 30 days' notice, and annual customers keep their price to the end of their term.
Does beehiiv take a cut of paid subscriptions?
No. beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue on Lite and Pro. Stripe still charges its own fees; beehiiv's FAQ cites 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, which matches Stripe's US rate for domestic cards. Paid recommendations are different: beehiiv keeps a 20% fee.
Can I get a refund?
Generally no. The Terms say “All fees are non-refundable”, cancelling does not give a prorated refund, and the help center says all sales are final. The only contractual exception is a material reduction of core functionality during a paid term. Use the 14-day Pro trial, which needs no card, to decide.
How are subscribers counted?
As active subscribers summed across every publication in your account. That total sets your tier, and Lite tiers run 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000 and up. If you go over, beehiiv can auto-upgrade your tier with a prorated charge; without that switch, sends may be delayed.
Can I use beehiiv outside the US?
You can publish, but earning depends on Stripe. Paid subscriptions need your own Stripe account, and the Ad Network and paid recommendations need Stripe Express, with no PayPal or Wise option. Check Stripe's global availability page for your country first.
Can I take my list with me?
Yes. Posts and subscribers export as CSV from Settings on every plan, in a Quick or Full version; download links last 24 hours.
Where this came from, and when.
Every price, limit, rule and rating in this review comes from the pages below, all as of Oct 26, 2026 unless another date is given. Expand for the full list, the scoring method and what the review does not cover.
Show sources, scoring method and scope
Pricing: beehiiv.com/pricing at all 11 subscriber tiers with yearly and monthly billing, every “Compare features” category and the FAQ, Oct 26, 2026. Previous plans: the Internet Archive copy of beehiiv.com/pricing dated Sep 23, 2026 (web.archive.org/web/20260923180649).
Terms and policies: beehiiv Terms of Use (last modified Oct 6, 2026; previous version Jul 16, 2026), Sections 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 17 and 18; Privacy Policy (last modified Oct 6, 2026); Acceptable Use Policy (last modified Jul 16, 2026).
Help center: “Am I eligible for a refund?”, “Plan types and subscriber plan tier pricing”, “How to change your beehiiv plan type and plan tier”, “What's included in a beehiiv free trial”, “Ways to contact beehiiv support”, “Boosts to paid recommendations: what changed”, “Growing your audience with paid incoming recommendations”, “Monetizing your newsletter with paid outgoing recommendations”, “Using the beehiiv Wallet”, “Using the beehiiv Ad Network”, “Ad Network FAQ”, “Understanding payable clicks in the beehiiv Ad Network”, “Using Stripe with beehiiv: Account types explained”, “Exporting post content or subscriber data from beehiiv”, “Understanding account reviews and blocks”, “Smart Warming and how it applies to you”, “Getting started with the beehiiv MCP”, “What you can do with the beehiiv MCP”, “What you can do with the beehiiv Agent”, “How to remove beehiiv branding from your publication” and “How to delete your beehiiv account”, each with its own update date as shown on the page.
Vendor pages and posts: beehiiv.com home, /about, /ad-network, /features/editor, /features/paid-subscriptions, /features/direct-sponsorships, /features/artificial-intelligence; the trust center at security.beehiiv.com; blog post “beehiiv Launches New Plans and Pricing (October 2026)” by Tyler Denk, Oct 1, 2026.
Video: four videos from the official beehiiv YouTube channel (@beehiiv), each embedded on beehiiv.com: sP12CIfusjw (editor, /features/editor), o0OkfSTfwqo (direct sponsorships, /features/direct-sponsorships), B1v2xMMrvr8 (paid newsletters, /features/paid-subscriptions) and HE91iDwc4jk (beehiiv MCP, /features/artificial-intelligence).
Independent evidence: Trustpilot profile for beehiiv.com (TrustScore 3.9, 412 reviews, star split, invitation and reply notes, recent reviews), Oct 26, 2026; Hacker News items 49632026 and 49861584; US App Store search results (no beehiiv-published app); PPC Land, Oct 8, 2026, on the price change. G2 and Capterra are not quoted; Reddit threads are not quoted.
Competitors and fees: ghost.org/pricing (yearly, 1,000 to 100,000 members), mailerlite.com/pricing (yearly and monthly at 10K), Substack's “How much does Substack cost?”, stripe.com/us/pricing, stripe.com/billing/pricing and stripe.com/global, Oct 26, 2026.
Images: screenshots of public pages taken on Oct 26, 2026 at 1280 by 800 pixels; product interface images inside them are beehiiv's own help-center and marketing illustrations. The Trustpilot screenshot was taken on Oct 26, 2026 at 949 by 949 pixels. JAVIS charts and diagrams are labelled as such and computed from the prices above. Related cards use JAVIS's own featured images.
JAVIS Fit Score (67/100): an editorial composite scored out of 20 on five criteria. Price clarity 13: every tier is public on one slider, but tiers count every publication, the yearly-saving claim overstates the arithmetic, AI allowances are described in words rather than numbers, and two help pages disagree on the Wallet minimum. Capability 18: newsletter, website, podcast, community, digital products, referrals, recommendations, an ad network, a sponsorship storefront and an MCP server in one account; minus enterprise-only security and AI controls. Independent evidence 12: a 3.9 Trustpilot score from 412 reviews with a large one-star minority, trade press reporting pushback on the price change, thin Hacker News coverage. Terms and data control 10: all fees non-refundable, no proration, broad content license, Ad Network data rights including cross-publication tracking and enrichment, CCPA “sale” disclosures, liability cap and New York courts; offset by CSV export on every plan. Cost and fit 14: free to 2,500 subscribers and cheaper than Substack above about $1,190 a month of paid revenue on Lite at 10,000, but mid and upper tiers rose 9% to 52% on monthly billing and wide tiers punish growth. It is judgment, not a measurement.
What this review does not cover: inbox placement and deliverability in practice, editor speed and reliability, actual Ad Network earnings, support response times, the podcast and community products in depth, Enterprise contract terms, the beehiiv Partner Program, and local-currency pricing (the pricing page shows USD).
