beehiiv pricing explained: what you actually pay

How beehiiv charges

beehiiv uses the flat-fee model: it takes 0% of your paid-subscription revenue and charges a fixed monthly plan fee instead. You keep everything you earn from subscriptions except Stripe's standard processing (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). That makes beehiiv the structural opposite of a revenue-share platform like Substack — see flat fee or revenue share for why the two are cheap at opposite ends of the revenue curve.

The plan price steps up with your subscriber count, which is the one thing to keep in mind: beehiiv's published rates below are verified at the entry bracket, and the fee climbs as your list grows.

The free tier is unusually generous

beehiiv's Launch plan is free up to 2,500 subscribers — one of the highest free ceilings of any platform we track, and well above Kit's 1,000 or Buttondown's 100. If you're building an audience before you charge anyone, you can run on beehiiv for $0/month in platform fees up to 2,500 subscribers.

The catch worth knowing up front: the free Launch plan doesn't include paid-subscription monetization. The moment you want to charge readers, you move to a paid plan — so beehiiv is genuinely free for growing a list, but not for earning from one. How it stacks up against the other free tiers at this stage is the whole subject of the cheapest platform when you're starting out.

What the paid plans cost

There are two published paid tiers. Scale is the main one at $49/month billed monthly, or $517/year — about $43.08/month — if you pay annually. Max steps up to $109/month, or $1,151/year (about $95.92/month annually), adding higher limits and more advanced features.

One gotcha that trips people up: beehiiv's pricing page advertises Scale as "$43.08/mo," but that's the annualized rate — the true monthly-billed price is $49. Paying yearly is what gets you to roughly $43.08. Both numbers above come straight from beehiiv's published pricing.

Those prices are the entry bracket. beehiiv scales the plan fee with your subscriber count above 2,500 subscribers, and we verify only the published entry rates here rather than guess at the slider — so for the exact figure at your list size, check beehiiv's pricing profile or model it in the calculator.

Where the flat fee helps — and where it hurts

Put real numbers on it at the free-tier ceiling. A newsletter with 2,500 subscribers, 100 of them paying $10/month, grosses $1,000/month. On beehiiv's Scale plan that costs $102.08/month all-in — the $43.08 plan fee plus $59 in Stripe processing, with nothing taken from the subscription revenue itself. That's an effective 10.21% of gross.

The flat fee cuts both ways. With only a handful of paid subscribers, that $43.08 plan fee is a real cost you pay no matter how little you earn — so beehiiv can be the *most* expensive option at a tiny paid base. But because beehiiv takes 0% of revenue, the fee is fixed while your earnings aren't: every new paid subscriber spreads that flat cost thinner, and beehiiv's effective rate falls as you grow. Compare it directly in beehiiv vs Substack, beehiiv vs Ghost, and beehiiv vs Kit.

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