Substack vs Beehiiv vs Kit: newsletter platforms in 2026

Pick Substack if you want to be discovered as a writer and expect paid subscribers. Pick Kit if the newsletter feeds a service business, products or courses. Pick Beehiiv if you are running the newsletter like a publication with ads and growth tests. The price gap between them depends on how much paid revenue you have.

The three platforms want different things from you

Each platform is built around a different idea of what a newsletter is for, and that idea shows up in what it charges and what it nudges you to do.

Substack treats the writer as the product. Its about page says writers keep 90% of their paid revenue minus card fees, that more than half of new subscribers come from Substack's built-in network, and that the platform is "free to start and free to leave." You get Notes, recommendations from other publications and a reader app. You do not get much in the way of segmentation or sequences.

Beehiiv treats the newsletter as a publication. It offers a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and takes 0% of your paid subscription revenue, according to its pricing page. The extras lean toward people who sell ads, run referral programmes and track where subscribers come from.

Kit, which used to be ConvertKit, treats the list as one channel of a small business. It is built around tagging, automations and selling digital products from the same account. If you want to send a different email to someone who clicked "web design" than to someone who clicked "branding", Kit is the one that makes that easy.

That is the honest split. Substack is for writers, Beehiiv is for publishers, Kit is for people who sell something.

What each one costs

Substack charges nothing monthly and takes 10% of every paid subscription, plus Stripe's card fees. Beehiiv charges a monthly fee that rises with your list and takes no cut of subscription revenue. Kit is free to 10,000 subscribers and then charges by list size, plus a small fee on sales.

The details, as of October 2026:

• Substack: 10% of paid subscription revenue. Stripe adds 2.9% plus $0.30 per payment and a billing fee of 0.7% for subscribers who joined after July 2024, according to Beehiiv's breakdown of Substack costs and Stripe's billing pricing. Beehiiv sells against Substack, so read that comparison with that in mind, but the numbers match Substack's own statement that writers keep 90%.
• Beehiiv: free up to 2,500 subscribers. For up to 1,000 subscribers, Lite is $59 a month ($49 if you pay yearly) and Pro is $109 ($95 yearly). Stripe's normal card fees still apply. Prices climb with list size.
• Kit: the free plan allows 10,000 subscribers. At 1,000 subscribers the Creator plan is $39 a month and Creator Pro is $79, and sales carry a fee of about 0.6% on top of card fees, according to Email Vendor Selection's 2026 review. At 5,000 subscribers, EmailToolTester's price table puts Creator at $89 a month.

Kit's own pricing page was rate-limiting requests when this post was checked, so confirm the current numbers with the vendor before you commit.

Where the money flips

Using the figures above, a flat monthly fee beats Substack's 10% once your paid revenue passes roughly $950 a month.

Here is the arithmetic, which is mine and not a vendor's claim. Take a list of 5,000 subscribers earning $2,000 a month from paid subscriptions. Substack's cut is $200. Kit's Creator plan at that size is $89, plus about 0.6% of $2,000, which is $12. That is about $101. Card fees are roughly the same on either platform, so they cancel out.

Set 10% of revenue equal to $89 plus 0.6% of revenue and you get a break-even of about $947 a month. Below that, Substack costs less than Kit. Above it, Kit costs less, and the gap grows with every extra dollar.

Beehiiv's price at 5,000 subscribers depends on the plan and the list, so run its calculator with your own numbers. Its 0% cut on subscription revenue puts it in the same cheaper-above-a-threshold position as Kit.

Most service businesses will never reach that point, because the newsletter is not their main income. If you earn $300 a month from paid readers, Substack's $30 is cheaper than any monthly plan, and you do not have to set anything up.

Growth is the part money cannot fix

Substack has the strongest built-in discovery. Its about page claims more than half of new subscribers come from within the Substack network. That is Substack's own claim, so treat it as marketing, but it matches what many writers say: the recommendation system sends real traffic.

That is the cost of leaving. You can export your list and your posts. You cannot export the recommendations other publications send you. If you start with no audience, the platform that helps strangers find you is worth more than the one with the nicest pricing, and for most writers that is still Substack.

Beehiiv has its own recommendation network and referral tools, but it is smaller. Kit has a creator network, though people usually pick Kit for automation and not for discovery.

Whichever you pick, most of your first thousand subscribers will come from your own channels: LinkedIn, a podcast, a talk, a good page on your website, a reply to someone else's post. The platform changes the share that comes from the network. Everything else is on you. Our guide to lead magnets that convert covers the offer that gets people to subscribe in the first place.

Which one fits which kind of business

Choose by what the newsletter is supposed to do for you.

If the newsletter is your public voice and you expect to earn from readers directly, use Substack. You write, you publish, and the audience grows through the network. There is almost nothing to configure.

If the newsletter is a front door for a service business, use Kit. A photographer, designer, consultant or coach can tag subscribers by interest, send a short sequence to anyone who asks about a service, and sell a template or course from the same place. You are using email to qualify people, and Kit's automations are built for that.

If you are running a publication with several writers, sponsors and a content calendar, use Beehiiv. The ad tools and subscriber analytics are aimed at that setup.

A common mistake is choosing the cheapest option and then spending hours working around its limits. A newsletter that sends one email a week to 400 people does not need automations, so do not pay for them. A newsletter that is supposed to turn readers into clients does, and Substack will leave you doing it by hand.

Three things people underestimate

First, the address. Substack puts you at a substack.com address unless you pay for a custom domain. If the newsletter is part of how clients judge your business, own the URL from day one on whichever platform you use.

Second, deliverability. All three send reliable email, but deliverability depends on your sending domain, your list quality and how people react to your messages. Authenticating your own domain matters more than which logo is on the dashboard. I have not seen a trustworthy head-to-head test, so ignore any post that claims one platform always lands in the inbox.

Third, the step after the email. A newsletter gets someone interested. Getting from "interested" to "paying you" is a separate job, and none of these three platforms does it. A reader who replies saying "can you quote me for this?" needs a form, a quote, a contract and a way to pay. If that step is a pile of emails and a PDF, you lose a chunk of the people the newsletter just warmed up. Our post on cold email outreach covers what to do when the interest has to be started and not waited for.

How Delivvo turns newsletter readers into paying clients

Delivvo picks up where the newsletter stops. It does not send newsletters. It handles the moment a reader says "I want to hire you" and carries it through to payment and delivery.

Here is a flow a service business can set up in an afternoon:

1. Put your Delivvo inquiry form link (delivvo.io/f/yourname) at the bottom of every issue. The form takes up to 40 fields.
2. Each answer lands as a lead on your lead board, in a New column, with the details attached.
3. An automation can send an instant reply with your price list and a booking link, so the reader is not left waiting.
4. You send a quote built from your packages and add-ons. If you are on the Pro plan, the client can accept, sign the contract and pay the deposit on a single page.
5. Delivvo creates the client, the project, the contract, the invoice and the payment schedule for you.
6. You deliver files through the client portal. Clients open it with a one-time code and no password.

The money detail matters if you came here comparing fees. Delivvo takes 0% of what clients pay you. The client pays through your own processor, such as Stripe, PayPal or Square, and Delivvo is never the merchant of record. You are not adding a second percentage on top of your newsletter platform.

Every quote, contract and invoice carries a verification code, so a client can check that a document is real. You can start on the free plan with no card.

See how the inquiry form and lead board work together.

Read more about Delivvo for teams, or start with the CRM and client portal.

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