beehiiv
Newsletter publishing platform with built-in growth tools: ad network, referral program, boosts, and paid subscriptions at a 0% platform fee.
About
beehiiv is a newsletter platform built by former Morning Brew employees Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, and Jake Hurd, founded in 2021. Instead of treating the newsletter as one channel among many, it treats the publication itself as the business: writing editor, hosted website with custom domain, referral program, recommendation network, Boosts for paid growth, an ad network, and paid subscriptions. The signature pricing choice is a 0% platform fee on paid subscription revenue, versus Substack's 10%.
The Launch plan is free to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, a website, and analytics. Scale starts from $49/month ($43 annual) and unlocks the ad network, automations, paid subscriptions, and digital products; Max starts from $109/month ($96 annual) with audio newsletters and sponsorship storefronts. Reviewers rate it 4.6/5 on G2 and call it the best newsletter platform for serious creators, while noting automations are less sophisticated than Kit's and the integration ecosystem is smaller than Mailchimp's. One independent review counts 55,000+ creators on the platform.
What it can do
- Writing-first newsletter editor
- Hosted website with custom domain
- Referral program and Boosts network
- Recommendation network
- Ad Network for sponsorships
- Paid subscriptions at 0% platform fee
- Digital products
- Email automations (Scale)
- A/B testing and segmentation
- Advanced campaign and revenue analytics
Setup
Sign up at beehiiv.com, name your publication, customize the website, and import subscribers or start publishing.
Prerequisites
Email address; custom domain optional on free plan; Stripe account for paid subscriptions.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (TIER metrics, metrics-v1). Evidence: founding team (ex-Morning Brew), plan structure, and pricing verified across three independent sources including beehiiv's own blog; G2 4.6/5 cited by reviewers. Strengths: 0% platform fee is a genuine differentiator, generous free plan with unlimited sends, integrated growth and monetization tooling. Docked for: (1) 55,000+ creators and email-volume figures are provider-stated without independent audit; (2) automation depth lags creator-focused competitors per reviewers; (3) plan names were in transition (Launch/Scale/Max vs Free/Lite/Pro) in late 2026, so exact current tiers should be rechecked. License: proprietary SaaS; free to 2,500 subscribers, paid from ~$43/month annual.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · Founded 2021 by Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, Jake Hurd (ex-Morning Brew)
- · 0% platform fee on paid subscriptions vs Substack's 10%
- · G2 4.6/5 cited by reviewers; 55,000+ creators per provider (unverified independently)
- · Automations less sophisticated than Kit per reviewers; smaller integration ecosystem
- · Plan names in transition (Launch/Scale/Max vs Free/Lite/Pro) in late 2026
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.