Last updated: August 15, 2026
Two platforms built for email newsletters can end up putting wildly different amounts of money in your pocket.
Beehiiv and ConvertKit look similar on the surface. ConvertKit now trades as Kit, and the rename brought a new plan line-up.
The gap between their monetisation models — not their feature lists — is where most creators quietly lose income.
The numbers matter here. Every fee, every platform cut and every plan gate lands on the same bank balance.
One figure gets quoted in almost every comparison of these two. Checked against both vendors, it overstates the real gap by about six times.
Here is where each platform actually takes its slice — and what reaches your account.
In This Article
- What 0% Really Means: The take rate Beehiiv advertises, the payment fee it does not, and the number left over.
- Where The 3.5% Actually Goes: Only a fraction of Kit’s transaction fee is Kit’s — the rest is the card network.
- Getting Paid To Recommend Others: Both platforms pay you to promote other newsletters, and both keep a share of it.
- Selling Digital Products By Email: Which platform lets you charge for a digital product before you pay a cent.
- How To Pick Yours: The revenue figure that decides which platform is cheaper for you, worked out in dollars.
What Each Platform Is Actually Built For
Which newsletter platform will pay you more?
It depends on how you make money, not the monthly fee. Answer one question to see which fits.
How do you plan to make money?
Both platforms carry the word “email” in their marketing. They solve completely different problems.
Pick the wrong one and you pay for it twice — once in setup time, once in revenue you never see.
Both platforms sound similar. They’re not. Choose wrong and you’ll be migrating in six months.
Beehiiv was built from the ground up as a newsletter platform for monetisation.
Its CEO Tyler Denk was employee number two at Morning Brew, Forbes reports.
ConvertKit was built for bloggers and course creators selling digital products by email.
For side hustlers weighing Beehiiv vs ConvertKit, that split decides almost everything.
The best newsletter platform for side hustlers is not the one with the longest feature list.
It is the one that matches how you plan to earn — subscriptions, or products.
Prices checked against beehiiv pricing and Kit pricing on 15 August 2026. Both headline figures are 1,000-subscriber entry tiers.
How We Compared These Two Platforms
This comparison is desk research, not a lab test. No hands-on trial account sits behind it.
Every price, plan name and fee below was read off the vendor’s own live pricing page on 15 August 2026, then cross-checked against their help documentation.
Where the two vendors describe the same cost differently, both descriptions are quoted and the arithmetic is shown.
The reader in mind is a side hustler with a day job.
That means a list under 10,000, a budget measured in tens of dollars, and no time for a migration.
Deliverability, editor feel and support quality are left to reviewers who run live accounts.
Anything that could not be traced to a vendor page or a named source was cut rather than estimated.
Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Pricing and Plans
Pricing looks similar on the surface. Both platforms run free plans and paid tiers starting under $50.
Beehiiv’s Scale plan is $49/month, or $43 billed annually at $516 a year.
Kit’s Creator plan is $33/month for 1,000 subscribers, billed yearly at $390.
Sounds like ConvertKit wins on price. On the plan fee alone, it does.
Neither number is a flat fee — both are the cheapest rung on a ladder.
Beehiiv’s plan tiers step up at 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers, and Kit’s Creator plan does the same.
That matters more than the headline, because the ladder is where an email list bill quietly doubles. The same pattern shows up in ConvertKit vs AWeber.
The Beehiiv vs ConvertKit pricing comparison only makes sense once you add the transaction fee to the plan fee.
A lower plan fee with a revenue cut can still beat a higher flat fee. It depends entirely on how much revenue passes through.
Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Monetisation and Revenue Share
This is where the real difference shows up, and it is smaller than almost every comparison claims.
Beehiiv takes a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions on the Scale plan.
Its own pricing FAQ then adds the part that gets dropped: you keep everything minus Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Kit charges 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction through Kit Commerce, and calls it the only cost.
Kit’s own commerce page breaks that figure open: just 0.6% is Kit’s cut, and the rest is card processing.
Put the two vendor pages side by side and the honest platform gap on subscription revenue is 0.6 of a percentage point.
Not 3.5. Neither vendor states it that way, because neither has any reason to.
Beehiiv paid subscriptions and zero revenue cut
Most people shopping for a newsletter platform fixate on the monthly fee.
The cost that actually scales with success is the slice taken from every payment a subscriber makes.
On Beehiiv the platform’s own slice is nothing — Stripe still takes its standard cut.
Say 200 readers pay you $9/month. Of that $1,800, roughly $112 goes to Stripe and none to Beehiiv.
Tyler Denk, Beehiiv’s CEO and co-founder, put the reasoning bluntly in a Forbes interview:
We don’t take a take rate on paid subscriptions. A lot of digital product providers do take a decently high take rate… we think the take-rate model in many cases is predatory.
That stance is real and unusual. Against this particular rival it is worth 0.6 points.
ConvertKit paid subscriptions and revenue share
ConvertKit supports paid newsletter subscriptions through Kit Commerce.
The charge is 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction, with no monthly fee for the commerce feature itself.
On the same $1,800 month, that comes to about $123 — roughly $11 more than Beehiiv.
Eleven dollars is real money. It is not the headline most comparisons imply.
The distinction still matters in any paid newsletter platform comparison:
- Beehiiv: 0% platform take, plus Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30
- ConvertKit: 3.5% + $0.30 all in, of which 0.6% is Kit’s
- Substack, for scale: 10% of every subscription, per Beehiiv’s own comparison
Against Substack the zero take rate is worth a fortune. Against Kit it is worth a rounding error.
Which model puts more money in your pocket
This is the part no page-one result works out — so here is the arithmetic.
At the 1,000-subscriber tier, Beehiiv Scale costs $516 a year and Kit Creator costs $390.
Beehiiv starts $126 a year behind, and claws it back at 0.6 cents in every subscription dollar.
Divide $126 by 0.006 and the crossover lands at $21,000 a year in paid-subscription revenue.
That is roughly $1,750 a month from readers before the zero take rate has paid for the pricier plan.
- Under about $1,750/month in subscription revenue: ConvertKit is cheaper overall
- Over it: Beehiiv pulls ahead, and the gap widens from there
- Both ladders climb with list size, so re-run this when your list doubles
Most side hustlers are nowhere near $1,750 a month. For them, the platform with the famous zero cut is the more expensive one.
Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Automation and Selling Digital Products
Automation is the wrong first question if you are selling digital products.
The first question is whether the platform lets you take money at all — and on which plan.
The platform you choose matters more than any workflow you build inside it.
ConvertKit wins that one outright. Kit Commerce runs on the free Newsletter plan, so a first product can go live at $0.
Beehiiv gates paid subscriptions and digital products behind the Scale plan — $49/month before a single payment lands.
So the creator with no revenue yet pays nothing on Kit and $49 a month on Beehiiv to take a first payment.
That inverts the whole “which platform pays you more” question at the starting line. Fees only matter once money is moving. Getting a checkout live is what has to happen first.
Its visual automation builder maps a full sales sequence without code.
It also plugs into Shopify, Thinkific and 100+ creator tools through the Kit App Store.
Beehiiv’s automations only appear on Scale. Click-triggered ones need the Max plan at $109/month.
If keeping the largest share of each sale is the goal, selling digital downloads directly is the wider version of this question.
Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Ease of Use and Setup
Features matter less than you would think if the first send takes three hours.
Beehiiv’s editor feels closer to Substack than to a traditional email tool.
ConvertKit’s strength is depth — which is also a steeper learning curve on day one.
On free plans the gap is the other way round than most people assume.
Kit’s free Newsletter plan carries up to 10,000 subscribers. Beehiiv’s free Launch plan stops at 2,500.
Here is where each platform actually stands:
- Beehiiv: publish-ready quickly, but monetising anything means the $49 Scale plan
- ConvertKit: stronger once sequences and tags click, and free to 10,000 subscribers
- Both: free plans, no credit card, and free migration help from Kit
Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Audience Growth Tools
Beehiiv’s growth tools are split across its free and paid plans, and the split is not where most comparisons put it.
Most platforms bolt growth on as an afterthought. Beehiiv made it the foundation.
The recommendation network runs on the free Launch plan. The referral program and paid recommendations arrive with Scale:
- Recommendation network — free Launch plan
- Referral program — Scale plan and above
- Ad network and paid recommendations — Scale plan and above
So the free tier still grows a list — earning from that growth is what costs $49.
Kit runs its own version. Paid Recommendations sit on the Creator plan, and Kit keeps 23.5% of what you earn through them.
Both platforms therefore take a cut of recommendation income. Only one of them publishes the percentage.
For a newsletter run alongside a day job, that transparency is worth more than the rate itself.
The Verdict: Which Platform Should Side Hustlers Choose
Both platforms are solid. They are not built for the same job.
The winner depends on one number: how much subscription revenue actually moves through the account.
- Above roughly $1,750/month in subscriptions? Beehiiv wins on fees, and keeps winning as revenue grows
- Below that, or still at zero? ConvertKit is cheaper, and its commerce runs free
- Selling courses and products rather than subscriptions? ConvertKit, without much argument
If a paid newsletter is the plan and it is already earning, Beehiiv is the better home.
If the list exists to sell things, or is not earning yet, ConvertKit costs less to start and less to run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can You Migrate Your Subscriber List From One Platform to the Other?
Yes, and it is easier than most people think. Both platforms accept a CSV import in minutes.
Kit also runs a free migration service for paid plans, rebuilding forms and automations for you.
What does not travel is your automation history and engagement data. Move before you build deep sequences, not after.
Do Both Platforms Offer a Mobile App for Managing Your Newsletter?
Both offer mobile apps. Neither is a replacement for a desktop.
Beehiiv’s app is built around growth stats and subscriber activity.
ConvertKit’s leans toward broadcast management. Running the whole operation from a phone makes the work harder than it needs to be.
Which Platform Has Better Customer Support Response Times?
Kit lists 24/7 email and chat on the Creator plan, and priority support on Pro.
Beehiiv gives every plan an AI assistant. Human support starts on the Scale plan, and priority support needs Max.
So the free tiers differ sharply. Kit answers free users by email; Beehiiv answers them with a bot.
Are There Any Tax Reporting Differences Between Beehiiv and ConvertKit Payouts?
Both pay out through Stripe, so both can trigger a 1099-K.
The IRS threshold reverted to more than $20,000 and more than 200 transactions, restoring the pre-2021 limit.
Keep your own records either way. Neither platform’s reporting replaces a proper bookkeeping setup.
Can You Run A/B Subject Line Tests on the Free Plans of Either Platform?
No. Both platforms put A/B subject line testing behind a paid plan.
Beehiiv gates it behind the Scale plan at $49/month.
Kit lists it as a Creator plan addition, with five-variant and content testing reserved for Pro at $66/month.
If split testing drives your growth plan, budget for a paid plan from the first month.
Conclusion
Picking the “better” platform is a red herring. Your monetisation model is the compass, not the software.
The zero revenue cut is real, and it is worth 0.6 of a percentage point against ConvertKit — not the 3.5 the headline implies.
Run your own number before you commit: annual plan gap divided by 0.006 gives the revenue where Beehiiv starts winning.
Below that line, ConvertKit keeps more of your money. Above it, Beehiiv does.
Stop chasing features. Follow the money trail your own business actually creates.
If a paid newsletter is the model, our breakdown of Beehiiv vs Substack prices the third platform worth checking before you commit.
