beehiiv vs Kit pricing: plan prices and what you keep from a paid newsletter

Last updated: September 23, 2026

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Kit and beehiiv. If you sign up through one of them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what you pay, and it does not change the arithmetic on this page. Every review states how close we got to the product. Learn more.

How well we know this tool: Not hands-on — published pricing only — we have a free beehiiv account on the Launch plan, on record since at least August 27, 2026, and have not paid for a beehiiv plan or run paid subscriptions on it; we have not used a Kit account for this page. beehiiv's prices come from its pricing page, which a person captured on September 23, 2026 at four list sizes on both billing options; we matched every price against those captures; Kit's prices come from its pricing page as a person captured it on September 14, 2026. Every "keeps" figure is our arithmetic on those published prices and fees. What this means.

You sell courses or digital products to a list of somewhere between 1,000 and 25,000 people, and you want to add a paid newsletter, or move the list to a tool built for one, without guessing which of beehiiv and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) leaves you more each month.

The short answer

Two numbers decide it: the plan price at your list size, and the cut taken from each paid subscription charge. beehiiv's pricing page says it takes 0% and that you pay Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30; Kit charges 3.5% + $0.30 per sale in US dollars, card processing included. On the fees as each company states them, a charge costs 0.6% of the price more on Kit than on beehiiv, and the fixed part is the same $0.30. Against that, a paid newsletter on beehiiv needs a paid plan (Scale or above), while Kit's Free plan can sell subscriptions and costs $0 up to 10,000 subscribers.

Everything below rests on one reading: that beehiiv's 2.9% + $0.30 is the whole fee on a charge. If your Stripe account takes more than 0.6% of each charge on top of that, beehiiv's fee is no longer the lower of the two and none of the crossover points below hold; the section on what each charge costs explains why.

The whole comparison is one line per month:

you keep = paid revenue − fee % × paid revenue − fixed fee × charges − plan price

Set the two equal and the fixed fees cancel, so beehiiv keeps more only once paid revenue × 0.6% > beehiiv's plan price − Kit's plan price. At 1,000 subscribers on yearly billing, on the fees as stated, that is $7,181 a month in paid subscriptions against Kit's Free plan, or 719 people paying $10 a month. The section on where the order flips has every list size.

What each plan costs at 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers

Monthly price on yearly billing (the yearly price divided by twelve, to the cent), with the monthly-billing price underneath. We hold Kit's prices only at 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers, the sizes a person captured from its pricing page. beehiiv publishes a step at 2,500 as well. This page lines up only the four sizes that both have, and leaves out Kit's 3,000. beehiiv's pricing page shows the yearly-billing figure per month rounded to whole dollars (for Scale at 1,000, $43 from $517 a year); the table divides the yearly price instead, so it can differ from the page by a few cents.

Both have a free plan, and they stop in different places. beehiiv's Launch plan is “Up to 2,500 subs” in its feature table and cannot take paid subscriptions: in the same table, the Paid subscriptions row has “—” in the Launch column, which the table's legend defines as “not included”. Kit's Free plan reads “Free—up to 10,000 subscribers” and, in Kit's help, “Commerce is available on every plan, including the Free plan.” (checked by a person on September 14, 2026). What each free plan leaves out is in the section on the cheapest plan below.

Both price by active subscribers. beehiiv's help defines an active subscriber as “A subscriber who you are sending to that has not unsubscribed or been marked as inactive.” (read by machine on September 23, 2026, not checked by a person); Kit's billing help says “At Kit, we charge for only your active subscribers.” (read by machine on September 14, 2026, not checked by a person). On the plan tier, beehiiv's help: “Represents the amount you would pay on your plan type, which is dependent on your current active subscriber count.” We have not compared the two definitions line by line, so the same list may not land on the same step at both.

What each paid subscription charge costs

beehiiv, from its pricing page:

No. beehiiv takes 0% of your paid subscription revenue. You keep everything you earn, minus Stripe's standard processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

The Stripe account is yours. beehiiv's help: “In order to sell paid digital products or offer paid subscriptions within beehiiv, you will need to first connect a Stripe account to process credit card payments.” (read by machine on September 23, 2026, not checked by a person). Kit, from its Commerce help (checked by a person on September 14, 2026):

Selling in USD costs 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction. There's no monthly fee for Commerce and nothing to pay until you make a sale.

What one charge leaves you, at three example prices. A monthly subscription is one charge a month; a yearly one is one charge a year.

Read the "beehiiv keeps" column as the charge minus 2.9% + $0.30, which is the fee as beehiiv describes it. Read the "Kit keeps" column as the charge minus 3.5% + $0.30, with nothing added for card processing because Kit says it is included. On a yearly charge the $0.30 is paid once instead of twelve times, on both.

The assumption the rest of this page rests on

These figures take beehiiv's 2.9% + $0.30 as the whole fee, as its FAQ states it. The two lines are not worded the same way. Kit states that its fee is the whole cost, in its Commerce help: “No. The 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction is the only cost of selling through Kit, and it applies only when you make a sale.” beehiiv's line names “Stripe's standard processing fee” and says nothing either way about other Stripe charges. Substack's help, describing Stripe on Substack, says “the Billing fee is not included in the "Stripe processing fee" amount” (read by machine on September 14, 2026 and not yet checked by a person). We do not know whether anything like that applies to a beehiiv publication, and we have not added it.

If your Stripe account charges anything more per charge, subtract it from the 0.6% difference. Anything below 0.6% of the charge raises every revenue figure in the crossover table. At exactly 0.6% the two per-charge fees are equal and beehiiv never overtakes Kit. Above it, beehiiv's fee is the higher one: where the crossover table says “Never, on the fees as stated”, Kit overtakes beehiiv once paid revenue is high enough, and where it gives a revenue figure, beehiiv does not overtake Kit at any revenue.

Kit's figure is for sales in US dollars. Its currency help lists GBP at 3.5% + £0.20, EUR at 3.5% + 0.25€, CAD at 3.5% + $0.30, AUD at 3.5% + $0.30 and NZD at 3.5% + $0.30 (read by machine on September 14, 2026, not checked by a person), and says the fee follows the currency the product is priced in: “For example, if you're a US-based creator who receives payouts in USD but you made a sale on a product whose price is in EUR, you will be charged the EUR fee of 3.5% + 0.25€ for the transaction.” Everything on this page assumes US dollars.

What you keep from a paid newsletter

The same arithmetic across a month, with every paid subscriber on a $10 monthly plan. The share of the list that pays is an input, not a figure we have a source for: 1%, 5% and 10% are there to show the range, and your own number replaces them. Plans are on yearly billing. beehiiv is on Scale, the cheapest plan that takes paid subscriptions; Kit is on the cheapest plan for the list, which is Free up to 10,000 and Creator above it.

* Kit's help describes the Free plan as “The Free plan costs $0 per month for as long as you stay under 10,000 subscribers.”, and its pricing page as “Free—up to 10,000 subscribers”. “Up to” includes 10,000 and “under” does not, and we have nothing that settles which one Kit means. The table reads it as “up to”. Read as “under”, a list of exactly 10,000 is on Creator, which costs $115.83 a month more at that size, and all three 10,000 rows change sides to beehiiv; in the crossover table below, the 10,000 cell becomes the Creator figure, “Never, on the fees as stated”.

Each figure is $10 × paying subscribers, minus the fee on each charge from the section above, minus the plan price from the first table. Read the "Ahead by" column as the difference between the two "keeps" columns, with the name of whichever keeps more.

Where the order flips

Because the fixed $0.30 is the same on both, the difference between them is 0.6% of paid revenue minus the difference in plan price. Solve for the revenue at which they are equal, and that is the monthly paid-subscription revenue above which beehiiv keeps more: (beehiiv plan price − Kit plan price) ÷ 0.6%. Yearly billing on both.

Read each cell as monthly paid-subscription revenue. Below it, Kit keeps more; above it, beehiiv does. “Never, on the fees as stated” means beehiiv's plan is the cheaper one at that size and, on the fees as each company states them, its fee is the lower one too, so it keeps more at any revenue on the fees as stated. The section on what each charge costs has the assumption this depends on. * The same “up to” reading as the previous table.

• At 25,000 subscribers, beehiiv keeps more than Kit's cheapest plan at any revenue on the fees as stated.
• If you need Kit Creator anyway, beehiiv keeps more at 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers at any revenue on the fees as stated.

At a higher subscription price the same revenue takes fewer paying people: divide the figure in a cell by your monthly price to get the head count.

The option that pays us nothing: Substack

Every Substack figure in this section comes from one help page, read by machine on September 14, 2026 and not yet checked by a person.

Substack charges nothing for the plan and takes a share of paid subscriptions instead. We have no affiliate arrangement with Substack. Its help page puts the cost at “10% of each transaction” plus this:

A credit card fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction fee) and a Billing fee for recurring subscriptions (0.7% for recurring payments as of July 2024).

We apply Substack's 10% and the card and billing fees to the full charge; its help does not say which amount the card fee is taken from, so this is the cautious reading. Same inputs as above: $10 a month, 5% of the list paying, yearly billing on beehiiv and Kit.

The "Substack keeps" column includes the recurring billing fee Substack's page lists; the "beehiiv keeps" column includes only the Stripe fee beehiiv's page lists. That difference comes from what each page says, not from a finding that one Stripe arrangement costs more than the other. With these inputs, Kit keeps the most at 1,000, Kit keeps the most at 5,000, Kit keeps the most at 10,000 and beehiiv keeps the most at 25,000. Substack keeps the least in every row: its 10% of revenue comes to more than the plan price on beehiiv or on Kit at each of these sizes. That does not depend on counting the 0.7% billing fee on Substack alone: add the same 0.7% to the "beehiiv keeps" column and Substack still keeps the least in every row.

The cheapest plan is not the same plan

The comparison above puts Kit Free against beehiiv Scale because those are the cheapest plans on each that take paid subscriptions. They do not do the same things. Kit's help article on its free plan (checked by a person on September 14, 2026): The Free plan is built around growing your list. These features live on the Creator and Creator Pro plans:

• Visual automations and the automation template library
• Email sequences
• Rules and RSS campaigns
• Kit MCP
• Paid apps in the Kit App Store. Free apps are still available to you
• Smart Recommendations
• Earning from Paid Recommendations

beehiiv's pricing page lists Scale as “Everything on Launch +”:

• Ad Network (not in trial; not in all regions)
• Recommendations (not in trial; not in all regions)
• 0% Take Rate on Paid Subscriptions (not in trial)
• Digital Products
• Community (new)
• Email Automations
• Surveys & Polls
• Advanced Website Analytics
• Webhooks
• beehiiv MCP (Write Access)
• beehiiv Agent (Write Access) (new)
• Teams (3 Seats) (not in trial)
• Slack Community Access (not in trial)
• Human Support

So if a welcome sequence or an automated funnel is part of how you sell, the Kit column to read is “vs Kit Creator” in the table above, not the cheapest one. We have not compared what each automation builder can do; the lists above are each company's own. Going the other way, beehiiv's Launch plan is free but has “—” (“not included”) in the Paid subscriptions row, so a paid newsletter on beehiiv starts at Scale's price.

A trial does not get you there early on beehiiv either. Its help on free trials: “Setting up paid subscriptions is not available during the trial period.” (read by machine on September 23, 2026, not checked by a person). The pricing page marks the same line on Scale “0% Take Rate on Paid Subscriptions (not in trial)”.

Who this is not for

• Lists above 25,000 subscribers. That is the largest size at which we hold Kit's prices, and the tables stop there.
• Sellers pricing in something other than US dollars. Kit's fixed part changes with the currency, as quoted above. beehiiv's pricing file is in USD and gives its fee only as 2.9% + $0.30, and we found nothing in it on other currencies. This page uses both in US dollars.
• Anyone who will not sell a subscription. Without paid subscribers the fee difference is zero and only the plan price is left; Kit pricing by subscriber count is the page for that. If you sell one-off products rather than subscriptions, Kit Commerce fees and our Gumroad, Payhip and Lemon Squeezy comparison price that.
• Anyone choosing for sponsorships or recommendations. beehiiv lists an Ad Network and Recommendations on Scale, and Kit has Paid Recommendations. None of that income, or the fees on it, is in these tables.
• Anyone who also needs a course platform. This page compares email tools only. For an email tool's price next to a course platform's bundled email, see Kajabi's bundled email vs Thinkific plus Kit.

What this does not tell you

• When beehiiv pays out, whether beehiiv or you are the seller of record, and what beehiiv does to your plan price when a list grows past a step. We did not find these on the pages we read, which is not the same as the pages not covering them.
• Tax, in any figure above. What we did read: on Kit's plan price, its billing help says “Your billing address determines whether sales tax needs to be applied and the rate charged.” (read by machine on September 14, 2026, not checked by a person); on your subscribers' payments, its Commerce help says “Kit collects Value-Added Tax (VAT) only. Other taxes, including US sales tax and Canada QST, aren't charged or collected for you.” (checked by a person on September 14, 2026). beehiiv's pricing file sends tax questions to its web pricing page: “Always cite https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing for checkout, trials, coupons, tax, and legal terms.” We have not read that page for its tax terms, so we have nothing from beehiiv on tax.
• Refunds on beehiiv, and failed payments and chargebacks on either. For Kit, its Commerce help answers “Can I refund a purchase?” with “Yes, in full. See How to refund a purchase.”, and in its answer on testing a purchase adds “Processing fees aren't refunded.” (checked by a person on September 14, 2026). The tables above assume no refunds.

Sources, access level and what we are paid

beehiiv: pricing page, the pricing file beehiiv publishes alongside it (the prices, the feature table and the 0% answer come from here), plan types and subscriber tiers, setting up Stripe for paid subscriptions and what is available during a free trial. A person captured the pricing page on September 23, 2026 at four list sizes on both billing options, and we matched every price on this page against those captures. The help articles were read by machine on September 23, 2026, not checked by a person.

Kit: pricing page, Commerce overview, Commerce currencies, The Kit Free plan and Billing at Kit. A person captured the pricing page at 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers on both billing options on September 14, 2026, and we matched each Kit price above to those captures. Substack: How much does Substack cost?, read by machine on September 14, 2026 and not yet checked by a person.

Access level, in full: we have a free beehiiv account on the Launch plan, on record since at least August 27, 2026, and have not paid for a beehiiv plan or run paid subscriptions on it; we have not used a Kit account for this page. beehiiv's prices come from its pricing page, which a person captured on September 23, 2026 at four list sizes on both billing options; we matched every price against those captures; Kit's prices come from its pricing page as a person captured it on September 14, 2026. Every "keeps" figure is our arithmetic on those published prices and fees.

Kit's Free plan has no plan fee ($0), and we have not confirmed whether Kit pays us anything on a Free account that sells through Kit Commerce. A paid newsletter on beehiiv needs a paid plan. So where this page points at Kit Free, it may point away from a commission for us, and we would rather tell you that than work out exactly which way it cuts.

What each company pays us if you sign up through our link, as our records hold it:

• beehiiv: 50% commission, for up to 12 months, then it stops
• Kit: 50% commission, for 12 months; after that, only if we refer at least 10 paying customers a year, which we have not done so far

50% is the entry rate. beehiiv's partner page describes a tiered program, “Earn up to 60% of revenue from your referrals for a full year.”.

The entry rates are the same, but we have not confirmed what each percentage is taken from or, for Kit, how long it lasts, so we put no dollar amount on either and do not claim the result here is neutral to us. The tables above are subtraction you can redo without us. Substack pays us nothing, and it has its own section above.

A caveat on our own terms for Kit: the figure is from the offer heading in the partner dashboard; we have not yet opened the offer details.

If you are going to sign up anyway

• Open a Kit account — affiliate link
• Open a beehiiv account — affiliate link

Using one costs you nothing extra and changes no number on this page. If the arithmetic points at Kit's Free plan or at Substack, that is where it points.

beehiiv's pricing read September 23, 2026, captured by a person September 23, 2026; Kit's prices captured September 14, 2026; Substack's help read September 14, 2026. If a number here is out of date, tell us at hello@feesandfigures.com and we will fix it and note the change at the top of this article.