beehiiv's Three Plans
beehiiv offers three tiers. Here's what actually matters on each.
Launch Plan — Free
Who it's for: Creators just starting out or validating a newsletter idea.
What you get:
- Up to 2,500 subscribers
- Unlimited email sends
- Basic newsletter editor
- beehiiv subdomain (yourname.beehiiv.com)
- Basic analytics
What you don't get:
- Custom domain
- Paid subscriptions
- Automation
- Referral program
- Ad network access
The free plan is generous for testing. But you can't charge readers and you're on beehiiv's subdomain, which limits your SEO.
Scale Plan — $39/month
Who it's for: Creators ready to monetize and grow seriously.
What you get:
- Up to 100,000 subscribers
- Custom domain
- Paid subscriptions (0% revenue cut)
- Automation sequences
- Subscriber segmentation
- Referral program
- Access to beehiiv ad network
- Advanced analytics
- Remove beehiiv branding
This is the plan most creators should be on. At $39/month, if you have even 4 paying subscribers at $10/month, you've covered the cost. Everything above that is pure profit you're not sharing with Substack.
Max Plan — $99/month
Who it's for: Large publications and media businesses.
What you get:
- Up to 100,000+ subscribers (custom pricing above)
- Custom HTML email templates
- Priority support
- NewsGPT AI tools
- Advanced team features
For most solo creators, Max is overkill. Scale covers 95% of what you need.
Is beehiiv Worth It?
The honest answer is: the free plan is worth it for starting, and Scale is worth it the moment you want to monetize.
Compare it to Substack: if you have 200 paying subscribers at $10/month, you're generating $2,000/month. Substack takes $200/month of that — $2,400/year. beehiiv Scale costs $468/year. You save $1,932/year by switching.
At higher subscriber counts, the math becomes even more dramatic. beehiiv Scale wins on pure economics the moment you start charging readers.