Substack vs beehiiv: Paid Newsletter Costs and Who Owns Readers

You are about to switch on paid subscriptions and the choice has narrowed to Substack or beehiiv. Two things decide it: what each one takes at your realistic count of paying readers, and whether those readers can follow you if you ever leave. Below are both, computed from each platform’s own pricing and help pages on October 5, 2026, with Kit added as the third option most comparisons skip.

The short answer

Substack is cheaper until you have roughly 56 paying readers at $10 a month, or 110 at $5, if you pay beehiiv month to month. On beehiiv’s yearly billing those lines drop to 46 and 91. Past that, beehiiv’s entry plan fee costs less than Substack’s percentage, and the gap grows with every reader you add.

That is the whole cost story for most people. The rest of this page is the math behind those two numbers, the case where they flip (a big free list with few paying readers), and who controls the payment records.

If your newsletter mainly sells products and your list is under 10,000, look at Kit before either of them.

How much does Substack cost?

Publishing on Substack is free no matter how many subscribers you have. Costs start only when readers pay you. As of October 2026, Substack’s help center lists three charges on each subscription payment: Substack’s 10%, Stripe’s card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 for US cards, and Stripe Billing at 0.7% for recurring charges. A custom domain is optional and costs a one-time $50.

Add those up and a $5 monthly subscription costs you $0.99 per payment, so you keep $4.01. On a $10 subscription the fees are $1.66 and you keep $8.34.

Notice what is not on that list: any charge for free readers. Substack’s bill does not grow with your list, only with your revenue.

What each platform takes at 100, 500 and 2,000 paid readers

The table below comes from a short script that applies each platform’s published rates per payment, rounds each fee to the cent, and multiplies by reader count. Assumptions: every reader pays monthly with a US card; no annual plans, refunds, failed payments, or app-store purchases. Rates as of October 2026.

Three things stand out.

First, a $5 price is expensive everywhere. The fixed $0.30 per payment is 6% of a $5 charge but 3% of a $10 one, which is why Substack takes 19.8% at $5 and 16.6% at $10. If you can charge $10 monthly or sell an annual plan, the per-payment fee matters less on any platform.

Second, the beehiiv column is processing only. beehiiv’s pricing page says it takes 0% of paid subscription revenue and names Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 as the remaining cost. It does not mention Stripe Billing’s 0.7%. If Stripe does bill that on your account, beehiiv’s column rises by $3.50 per $500 of revenue; the script’s sensitivity run shows the $10 break-even shifting from 56 to 60 readers on monthly billing, or from 46 to 50 on yearly.

Third, Kit’s 3.5% + $0.30 already includes card processing. Kit’s pricing page says it keeps 0.6% of that and the rest is processing, and its Commerce help calls it the only cost of the feature.

How expensive a plan can be before Substack wins

The fair way to compare a percentage with a flat fee is to ask how much plan fee the flat-fee tool could charge before Substack comes out ahead. That headroom is Substack’s fees minus the other tool’s per-payment fees:

Now compare those numbers with what the plans cost. As of October 2026, beehiiv’s Lite plan, the cheapest one with paid subscriptions, costs $59 a month billed monthly or $49 a month billed yearly at the 1,000-subscriber position of its pricing slider. The price rises with list size, so check the slider at yours. Kit’s Creator plan is $39 a month, or $390 a year, at 1,000 subscribers, and its help center gives $59 a month as the 3,000-subscriber tier. Kit’s free plan costs nothing up to 10,000 subscribers and still includes paid subscriptions.

That gives these break-even points, counting only paying readers:

• beehiiv Lite at $59, billed monthly: cheaper than Substack from 110 paid readers at $5, or 56 at $10.
• beehiiv Lite at $49, billed yearly: cheaper from 91 paid readers at $5, or 46 at $10.
• Kit Creator at $39: cheaper from 77 paid readers at $5, or 39 at $10.
• Kit Creator at $59: cheaper from 116 paid readers at $5, or 59 at $10.
• Kit free plan: cheaper than Substack at any count, as long as the whole list stays under 10,000.

One more variable changes the answer, and no top result works it through with numbers. beehiiv and Kit price their plans on your total subscriber count, free readers included. Substack ignores free readers. So a writer with 40,000 free subscribers and 60 paying ones will pay beehiiv’s tier for 40,000 people to collect from 60, while Substack charges only on the 60 payments. If your free list is large and your paid conversion is small, run the beehiiv and Kit sliders at your total list size and compare that number with the headroom table above. That comparison, not the 0% headline, tells you which is cheaper.

Your tier price beyond the entry level only shows on each pricing page’s slider, so read it there rather than from any roundup, this one included.

What changed at beehiiv in 2026

Several top results still quote beehiiv’s old Launch, Scale and Max plans. As of October 2026 the pricing page lists Free (up to 2,500 subscribers), Lite (up to 100,000), Pro (up to 250,000; $109 a month billed monthly or $95 billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers) and Enterprise. beehiiv’s help center confirms the four plan names.

Two details matter for a paid newsletter. Paid subscriptions are listed only from Lite upward, so the free plan cannot charge readers. And a custom domain, for both the website and the sending address, needs a paid plan.

If you are not charging yet and your list is under 2,500, beehiiv’s free plan is a real option. The moment you want a paywall, budget for Lite.

Who owns the paying readers

A subscriber CSV is easy to take anywhere. The harder question is whether paying readers keep paying when you move, and that depends on whose Stripe account holds their subscriptions. As of October 2026:

The row that matters most is the Stripe account. On Substack and beehiiv, the subscriptions sit in a Stripe account you own, so a move between them is a migration rather than a relaunch. beehiiv’s own comparison page says readers moving from Substack keep their payment method and billing cycle, and Substack’s comparison page makes the same claim for imports from beehiiv. Both are vendor pages selling a switch, so test with a few readers first.

Kit is different. Its payments run through a Kit-managed Stripe Express account, and nothing in the Kit help pages we read explains how to take active paid subscriptions to another platform. That is not a reason to avoid Kit. It is a reason to treat a Kit paid tier as harder to move, and to keep it small until you are sure you will stay.

I learned the cost of rented reach with an ebook: sales stopped the same week the paid ads did, because nothing I owned kept bringing buyers in (the full story). A paying list held in your own Stripe account is the opposite of that. It keeps billing while you decide what to do next.

Discovery: Substack’s network or beehiiv’s ad network

Substack’s pitch is that readers find you inside Substack: recommendations from other writers appear when someone subscribes to them and in digest emails, and the recommendations tab shows how many free subscriptions each one produced. beehiiv’s pitch is money from the list you bring: the Ad Network on paid plans pays per thousand unique opens or per unique click, and paid recommendations let other newsletters pay you per subscriber, minus beehiiv’s 20%.

Neither is free money. Substack’s network rewards writers who are active inside Substack, and beehiiv’s ads reward lists that open and click. If you already have an audience somewhere else, such as a YouTube channel, beehiiv’s model fits better; building the list from video is its own job.

Which one if…

1. You have no paying readers yet and want to test demand. Substack. It costs nothing until someone pays, and below about 56 paid readers at $10 (110 at $5) it stays cheaper than beehiiv’s month-to-month Lite plan anyway. Connect your own Stripe account when you go paid, which Substack requires, and you keep the exit open.
2. You expect more than 60 paid readers at $10, or 120 at $5, within a year. beehiiv Lite. Run the slider at your total list size, check it against the headroom table, and if it fits, start there rather than migrating later. Paying yearly lowers the line to 46 and 91.
3. Your free list is huge and paid conversion is low. Run both numbers. A large free list can push beehiiv’s tier past Substack’s percentage, and Substack never charges for free readers.
4. Email mainly sells your digital products, and the list is under 10,000. Kit’s free plan charges no plan fee, includes paid subscriptions and product sales at 3.5% + $0.30, and adds a custom domain. Keep the paid tier modest, because the payment account is Kit’s, not yours. For comparing processors on one-off product sales, see Stripe vs PayPal for digital products.
5. You want ad revenue without selling sponsors yourself. beehiiv, since its Ad Network is open to any paid plan that is actively sending. Substack’s sponsorships are limited to bestsellers for now.

For the broader picture of six email tools priced at 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers, see email marketing for creators; more stack comparisons live under tool stack.

Before you pick, write down how many paying readers you can realistically have in six months and at what price, then find that row in the break-even list above. If you land under the line, start on Substack; over it, start on beehiiv Lite.