Review
beehiiv review: the free plan is generous, until you want to make money
One of the few newsletter platforms whose free tier is a real product rather than a trial, with the catch that everything which earns you money starts on the paid tier.
Best for: Anyone starting a newsletter who wants to reach a few thousand readers before spending anything
Free up to 2,500 subscribers, then $43 a month, or $517 a year See beehiiv pricing
Most newsletter platforms give you a free plan that exists to make you upgrade: a few hundred subscribers, a monthly send cap, and a nag screen. beehiiv's free tier is not that. It carries 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, three publications, custom domains, a website and a podcast. People genuinely run newsletters on it for a year without paying. The honest tension is elsewhere: every feature that turns a newsletter into income — the ad network, paid subscriptions, digital products, automations — is switched off until you pay. So the question is not whether the free plan is good enough to start. It is whether you are building an audience or building a business, and how soon.
Who this is for
- Anyone starting out who wants to prove the newsletter before spending money — 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends is a long runway
- Writers who intend to earn from the list, who should budget $43 a month from the point they have readers worth monetising, not before
- People who care that the platform's branding does not appear on their newsletter — that only goes away on the $96 tier
Pricing
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | $0 | Up to 2,500 subscribers, 3 publications, 1 seat. Unlimited email sends, website, podcast, custom domains, campaign analytics, recommendation network, link-in-bio, API access. 10 AI credits a day. beehiiv branding shown. No ad network, no automations, no paid subscriptions, no surveys, no A/B testing. |
| Scale — billed monthly | $43 | Up to 100,000 subscribers, 3 publications, up to 3 seats. Adds the ad network, paid subscriptions at a 0% take rate, digital products, community, email automations, surveys and polls, advanced analytics, webhooks, human support. 25 AI credits a day. beehiiv branding still shown. |
| Scale — billed yearly | $517 | Same as monthly Scale. Works out about $71 a year cheaper than paying monthly. |
| Max — billed monthly | $96 | Up to 100,000 subscribers, up to 10 publications, unlimited seats. Adds removal of beehiiv branding, sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, RSS-to-send, Send API, click-triggered automations, group subscriptions, priority support, Getty image credits. 50 AI credits a day. |
| Max — billed yearly | $1,151 | Same as monthly Max. About $157 a year cheaper than paying monthly. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Over 100,000 subscribers, custom publication limits, dedicated account manager, dedicated IP addresses, SSO, concierge onboarding, VIP support. |
Pricing checked October 2026 on the vendor's own page. Prices change — verify before you buy.
What is good, and what is not
Good
- 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends on the free plan, with custom domains and a website included — that is a working product, not a trial.
- Paid subscriptions carry a 0% take rate on the Scale plan, so the platform does not take a cut of reader revenue.
- The subscriber limit jumps from 2,500 straight to 100,000 on the first paid tier, so the price does not creep up as the list grows.
- Three publications on the free plan, which is unusual — most platforms charge per newsletter.
Not so good
- Every way of earning from the list — ad network, paid subscriptions, digital products — is off on the free plan.
- beehiiv branding stays on your newsletter through both the free and the $43 tier. Removing it costs $96 a month.
- Automations are a paid feature, so the free plan cannot run a welcome sequence.
- Only one seat on free and three on Scale; if two people edit the newsletter you are into the paid tiers immediately.
- AI credits are a daily allowance rather than a monthly one, so a heavy writing day runs out and waits until tomorrow.
- The Send API sits on the $96 tier, which matters if you want to trigger emails from your own app.
The verdict
Start on the free plan. It is one of the few free tiers in this category that is not quietly designed to fail, and 2,500 subscribers takes most people a good while to reach. Move to Scale at $43 the month you have something to sell or sponsors worth taking, not before — paying for an ad network with 300 readers is paying for a feature you cannot use yet. The $96 Max tier is a narrower decision: it is mostly about removing the platform's branding and getting the Send API, and if neither of those bothers you, Scale is where this plateaus. Pay yearly only once you have been publishing long enough to know you will keep going.
If it is not the right fit
No single product suits everyone. If the drawbacks above rule it out for you, these are where we would look next — including options that earn us nothing:
| Option | From | Better if |
|---|---|---|
| Kit (formerly ConvertKit) | — | Creators who want automations and tagging on a free tier, and care less about the publishing side |
| Substack | — | Writers who want zero setup and accept a percentage of paid subscription revenue instead of a monthly fee |
| Ghost | — | People who want to own the whole stack and are comfortable self-hosting or paying for managed hosting |
Questions people ask
Is the free plan really free?
Yes, with no card required and no send limit. The constraints are 2,500 subscribers, one seat, and no monetisation or automation features.
Does beehiiv take a cut of paid subscriptions?
On the Scale plan the take rate is 0%. Payment processing fees from Stripe still apply separately.
When does the beehiiv branding disappear?
On the Max plan at $96 a month. It remains on both the free plan and the $43 Scale plan.
What happens when I pass 2,500 subscribers on the free plan?
You need to move to a paid plan to keep growing. The first paid tier covers up to 100,000, so it is a single step rather than a sliding scale.