Beehiiv vs MailerLite vs Substack: Newsletter Platform Pricing Playbook

The one decision: a percentage of revenue, or a flat monthly price

Three platforms sell the same job — publish a newsletter, grow a list, charge readers — two opposite ways. Substack charges nothing to publish, then takes 10 percent of every paid subscription payment on top of Stripe processing fees. Beehiiv and MailerLite charge a flat monthly plan price that rises with list size and take 0 percent.

A percentage fee is cheap near zero revenue and expensive forever after; a flat fee is the reverse. Every figure below comes from the vendors' own pricing pages, read 8 November 2026. The worked model assumes a $10 monthly subscription and paid-conversion rates of 2, 5 and 10 percent.

The three models, stated plainly

Beehiiv's four plans start with Free: $0 for up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited email sends. Lite starts at $59 a month ($49 billed annually) at up to 1,000 subscribers and rises in fixed steps to $469 at 100,000. Pro starts at $109 ($95 annually) at up to 1,000 and rises to $999 at 250,000. Enterprise is custom-priced. Paid subscriptions on Lite and Pro carry a 0 percent take rate; Stripe's 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction applies. All plans include unlimited email sends.

MailerLite's four plans start with Free: up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, $0. Comfort starts at $12 a month ($10.80 annually) at up to 500 subscribers; Power starts at $25 ($22.50 annually) at the same size. Both paid plans rise with subscriber count; yearly billing saves 10 percent. MailerLite states on its own Substack comparison page that it takes 0 percent commission on paid subscriptions, Stripe fees only on top. Paid newsletters need Comfort or Power.

Substack has no tiers and no monthly plan. Publishing is free at any list size; the cost appears only when readers pay: Substack takes 10 percent of each paid subscription payment, and Stripe adds its card processing fee. One honest gap: Substack publishes no pricing table of its own — its pricing address returns a 404 — so the 10 percent figure is carried here from beehiiv's pricing FAQ and MailerLite's Substack comparison page. Stripe's own pricing page confirms the processing figures used below.

Free tiers: the ceilings that end the free ride

Beehiiv Free is generous: 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, one publication, one team seat, a 30-day lookback. MailerLite Free is small: 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, 10 sends per subscriber per month at the cap. Substack free has no ceiling — it ends only when you turn on paid subscriptions.

The ceiling that bites first is rarely the subscriber count: a MailerLite creator with 240 subscribers who sends daily hits the 2,500-email allowance in about 10 sends, while a beehiiv creator with 2,400 subscribers who sends daily pays nothing — as does a Substack creator with 40,000 free subscribers, until the first reader pays.

The price ladders at 1,000, 10,000 and 50,000 subscribers

Headline prices mislead because both flat-fee vendors price by list size: beehiiv's $49 Lite figure applies only up to 1,000 subscribers ($119 at 10,000; $249 at 50,000), and MailerLite's $12 Comfort figure only up to 500 ($19 at 1,000; $89 at 10,000; $319 at 50,000). The table uses monthly billing throughout.

Comfort is the cheapest flat plan at 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers ($19 against $59; $89 against $139). At 50,000 the order flips — Lite at $299 undercuts Comfort at $319 by $20. Pro's premium over Lite grows with the list — $50 a month at 1,000 subscribers, $100 at 10,000, $170 at 50,000 — buying branding removal, up to 10 publications, 10 team seats, group subscriptions and the Send API, which a single-author newsletter never uses.

Beehiiv repriced on 1 October 2026 and renamed its plans — Scale became Lite, Max became Pro — so pre-October guides are stale. The figures here are the post-October prices read from beehiiv's own pricing file on 8 November 2026.

The per-payment math: what one $10 subscription costs you

A reader pays $10 a month. Stripe's card fee is 2.9 percent plus $0.30: $0.29 plus $0.30, or $0.59. Substack adds its 10 percent, $1.00, and Stripe Billing adds 0.7 percent, $0.07. Beehiiv and MailerLite add no platform share.

The $1.07 gap is the story in miniature: $1.00 of Substack platform fee plus $0.07 of Stripe Billing. Note the fixed $0.30 inside the card fee: on a $5 monthly subscription it alone is $0.45, 9 percent of the payment; on a $50 annual payment the same $0.30 is 0.6 percent.

Monthly cost at 5 percent paid conversion

At 5 percent conversion, 1,000 subscribers means 50 paying readers and $500 gross a month; 10,000 means 500 paying and $5,000; 50,000 means 2,500 paying and $25,000. The table charges each platform its plan price plus Stripe card fees, and Substack its 10 percent plus the 0.7 percent Billing fee.

Check the 10,000-subscriber row by hand. Substack: 10 percent of $5,000 is $500; card fees are 500 times $0.59, $295; Billing is 0.7 percent of $5,000, $35; total $830. Lite: $139 plus $295 is $434. Comfort: $89 plus $295 is $384. Substack costs $396 a month more than Lite and $446 more than Comfort for the same $5,000 of gross revenue.

At 1,000 subscribers the answer flips: Substack at $83 is $5.50 cheaper than Lite at $88.50, because $500 of gross revenue is too small for the 10 percent to exceed a $59 plan price; Comfort at $48.50 is cheaper than both. At 2 percent conversion on a 10,000 list (200 paid, $2,000 gross), Substack costs $332 a month, Lite $257, Comfort $207; at 10 percent (1,000 paid, $10,000 gross), Substack costs $1,660, Lite $729, Comfort $679.

Break-even: the conversion rate where flat beats percentage

A flat plan beats Substack once 10 percent of gross exceeds the plan price. Gross is paid subscribers times $10, so the break-even paid count equals the plan price in dollars: a $139 plan breaks even at 139 paid subscribers.

Lite breaks even at 5.9 percent conversion on a 1,000 list (59 paid), 1.39 percent on a 10,000 list (139 paid), 0.60 percent on a 50,000 list (299 paid). Comfort breaks even at 1.9, 0.89 and 0.64 percent at the same sizes (19, 89 and 319 paid). Pro breaks even at 10.9, 2.39 and 0.94 percent. Above those rates the flat plan is cheaper, and the gap widens with every paying reader.

Test your own numbers the same way: divide your monthly plan price by your subscription price times 0.10 and compare with your paid count. Our pricing calculator runs it with your own figures.

Annual billing: what a year of monthly payments wastes

Yearly billing cuts the flat plans, never Substack, which has no plan price to discount. Lite at 1,000 subscribers is $708 on monthly billing against $588 annually, saving $120. At 10,000 it is $1,668 against $1,428, saving $240; at 50,000, $3,588 against $2,988, saving $600. Pro saves $480 a year at 10,000 ($2,868 against $2,388) and $840 at 50,000 ($5,628 against $4,788). MailerLite's yearly saving is a flat 10 percent: Comfort saves $22.80, $106.80 and $382.80 at 1,000, 10,000 and 50,000 subscribers.

The saving is real only if you stay the year.

The send-volume trap MailerLite sets and beehiiv does not

Plan price is not the only meter. MailerLite caps monthly sends at 10 times the subscriber count: 10,000 emails at 1,000 subscribers, 100,000 at 10,000, 500,000 at 50,000. A weekly newsletter sends about 4 times a month and uses less than half the allowance; a daily newsletter sends about 30 times and needs three times it, and the fix is a higher tier or a smaller list. Beehiiv and Substack place no send cap. If you send daily, MailerLite's quoted price understates your cost.

Who should pick which

Pick Substack if your list is large and free and paid conversion is near zero, or if you have not yet proven anyone will pay. At 10,000 free subscribers Substack costs $0 while Lite costs $139 and Comfort $89. Substack also wins on discovery: its recommendation network and Notes feed surface your publication to readers who never searched for it. Stay while paid revenue is under roughly $590 a month if you would otherwise buy Lite, or under $190 for Comfort.

Pick beehiiv Lite if you monetize and send often: unlimited sends, a 0 percent take rate, paid subscriptions, the ad network and automations from $49 a month billed annually, cheaper than Comfort once the list passes roughly 25,000 to 50,000 subscribers. Pick Pro only for the features it gates: branding removal, more than 3 publications, more than 2 team seats, group subscriptions, or the Send API.

Pick MailerLite Comfort if you want the cheapest flat plan at small and mid-size lists and you treat the newsletter as one part of an email operation — landing pages, forms, automations and a website in one account. Pick Power if you need unlimited automations, forms, sites, products, or monthly emails. For the automation side, our Klaviyo vs Mailchimp vs ConvertKit pricing comparison prices the general email platforms, and our Mailchimp vs Klaviyo vs ActiveCampaign automation playbook covers the automation features MailerLite's paid tiers include.

Deliverability decides the switch as much as price. Set SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in DNS before the first paid send. Beehiiv gates the Send API behind Pro, and both platforms export the list as CSV; a B2B list should price on LTV and CAC, not the sticker.

Switching checklist

1. Count paid subscribers and gross monthly revenue: under $190 a month, Substack is still cheapest against Comfort; under $590, cheapest against Lite.
2. Count sends per subscriber per month: above 10, MailerLite's send cap binds and the quoted Comfort price understates the cost.
3. List the features that gate your plan. More than 2 team seats, more than 3 publications, or group subscriptions force beehiiv Pro; unlimited automations force MailerLite Power.
4. Test the export. Download the full list with tags and paid status before paying for the new platform.
5. Move free subscribers first, paid subscribers last. Free readers move by import; paid readers must re-enter payment details, so move them with an explicit email and a founding-member offer.
6. Compare on annual billing only after 90 days. Pay monthly until list size and send cadence are settled, then take the yearly saving — $240 on Lite at 10,000 subscribers, $106.80 on Comfort. Transactional email has its own pricing logic; our Mailgun vs SendGrid vs Amazon SES pricing playbook prices the sending infrastructure underneath these platforms.