Newsletter tools / Cost comparison
beehiiv vs Substack: when does a fixed fee make sense?
A 10% fee feels expensive. A yearly subscription can cost more when your newsletter is still small. Here is the calculation to do before switching.
The two prices being compared
Substack charges no publishing subscription and takes 10% when readers pay. Stripe fees are additional. Check Substack’s fee policy.
At the 1,000-subscriber setting, beehiiv’s pricing page displayed Lite at $49/month with yearly billing and a 0% platform take on paid subscriptions. That is a $588 yearly equivalent, not a verified $49 month-to-month checkout price. Pricing depends on list size and billing choice. Check your beehiiv quote.
Do not confuse your total email list with paying members. A list of 1,000 could have 20 paying members—or none. Use actual paying readers below.
Compare your own numbers
USD throughout. Replace the fixed fee with the quote for your total list size. For annual billing, divide the annual charge by 12.
Formula: paying readers × monthly price × 10%, compared with the fixed fee. Annual reader payments must also be divided by 12. Input values stay in your browser. This is not a take-home earnings calculator.What the arithmetic looks like
| Paying readers | Monthly revenue | 10% fee | Fixed fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $100 | $10 | $49 |
| 49 | $490 | $49 | $49 |
| 100 | $1,000 | $100 | $49 |
| 300 | $3,000 | $300 | $49* |
A crossover is not a switching decision
At 50 readers paying $10, the difference is only $1 per month before other fees. Spending hours moving a publication to save that dollar would be hard to justify on cost alone. At 300 paying readers, the illustrated gap is $251. That is worth investigating after checking the actual plan tier and work involved.
- Cash commitment: Can you afford the full annual bill if revenue falls? Monthly-equivalent pricing smooths the chart, not the cash payment.
- Reader continuity: Verify how existing paid subscriptions, email delivery and published links will transfer. Do not cancel the current service until those paths work.
- Required features: List the few functions you actually use, then confirm them on the specific plan. A cheap plan missing a necessary feature is not cheaper for your workflow.
What this comparison leaves out
Payment processing, recurring billing charges, refunds, taxes, discounts, optional domains and migration time are excluded. They need not be identical across platforms. Substack lists separate Stripe processing and recurring billing fees; check the schedule for your account and payment methods. The $490 crossover compares platform charges only.
We have not tested deliverability, editing speed, audience discovery or a live paid-subscriber migration. We cannot tell you which service will bring more readers. If discovery or editing is the deciding factor, this cost comparison alone is insufficient.
If you have no paying readers yet
A fee calculation should not push you into a paid software plan before you need one. Substack supports free publishing; beehiiv also lists a free tier. Confirm whether a free option supports your intended workflow. Revisit paid-platform costs when you have a concrete feature need or real paid revenue.
Our recommendation
For an uncertain or small paid newsletter, keep fixed commitments low. For sustained paid revenue above the crossover, get a current fixed-plan quote and compare the full annual cost before moving. At the boundary, usability and reader continuity matter more than a tiny fee difference.