Substack vs beehiiv for a paid newsletter: fee break-even calculator

Checked 17 October 2026

Substack is free to publish and keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue. beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscriptions but paid subscriptions require a paid plan; Lite shows $49/mo billed yearly at the pricing page's default setting (1,000 subscribers). Stripe processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment) apply on both, plus Stripe Billing on Substack (0.7% recurring per Substack's help page), so we leave Stripe out of the comparison except where noted.

With the default $49/mo, the break-even is $490 of monthly paid revenue: below that Substack's 10% costs less; above it, a flat plan costs less. Higher subscriber counts move beehiiv to a higher pricing tier, so check its pricing page for your list size.

How this page was made: facts come from each platform's own pricing and help pages, read on 17 October 2026 (sources numbered in every row). We have not yet run a newsletter on each of these platforms, so we make no claims about deliverability or ease of use. We plan to run our own newsletter on a free plan and will report what we actually observe, with dates.

Sources: Substack fees · beehiiv pricing