We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. The best beehiiv alternatives in 2026 are Substack, Kit, Ghost, MailerLite and Buttondown, with Drry as the pick for writers who want paying members, a community and courses in one place. Most writers look for a beehiiv alternative for one reason: charging readers needs a paid plan that grows with the list. The beehiiv figures below carry the date we checked them and a link to the source; other vendors are described by how they charge, because prices move, so verify current terms before you commit, including ours.
Credit first, because it is earned. beehiiv is one of the best newsletter platforms there is: unlimited sends on every plan, a real website on your own domain, referrals and recommendations, an ad network, and 0% taken from paid subscriptions once you are on a paid plan. If growing a publication is the job, staying may well be the right answer. For what it actually costs at your list size, see our beehiiv pricing guide.
Why do writers leave beehiiv?
The free Launch plan holds up to 2,500 subscribers and sends as much as you like, but it cannot earn: paid subscriptions, the ad network and digital products are all on the paid plans, which start at $49 a month billed monthly and rise with each subscriber tier. A writer with a small, loyal audience who wants to charge a few dollars a month meets a plan price before the first dollar arrives.
The other reasons are about shape rather than price. Some writers want Substack's discovery network. Some want to own their software outright. And some find their newsletter has turned into a business that sells a course, coaching or a membership, where readers need somewhere to log into rather than another email.
Substack: the network, at a percentage
Substack is the closest match in shape: a publication with a website, posts, paid subscriptions, chat and live video, and a recommendation network that can grow a list faster than anything you build alone. It charges nothing to publish and takes a percentage of your paid subscriptions instead.
- Best for: writers whose growth comes from discovery, and anybody who wants to charge before paying a plan price.
- Pricing structure: free to publish at any size, with a cut of paid subscription revenue plus card processing. Our Substack pricing guide has the dated figures.
- What you give up: the 0% economics once you earn, since the percentage never stops, and most of beehiiv's growth tooling. Our Substack alternatives guide covers leaving it later.
Kit: the creator email tool, with a bigger free list
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is an email platform first: tags, visual automations and sequences, with landing pages, forms and commerce for selling products and paid newsletters. Its free plan holds up to 10,000 subscribers, against 2,500 on beehiiv's Launch.
- Best for: writers who run on automations and want a large list before paying anything.
- Pricing structure: a free plan, then paid plans priced by subscriber count; selling costs a per-sale fee that includes card processing. See Kit pricing.
- What you give up: a publication website as rich as beehiiv's, and its ad network. Automations are on Kit's paid plans, not the free one.
Ghost: open source, and yours outright
Ghost is a publishing platform with memberships and newsletters built in, and it is open source, so you can pay for its hosted service or run it on your own server. Paid subscriptions go through your own Stripe account with no transaction fee from Ghost, and it has a recommendations feature of its own that works across the open web.
- Best for: writers who want a real website and a paid publication they fully control, down to the code.
- Pricing structure: hosted plans priced by audience size, with a free trial rather than a free plan, and paid subscriptions only from the second plan up; self-hosting costs a server and your time instead.
- What you give up: ease, mostly. Ghost asks more setup of you, and we could not find an ad network or anything like beehiiv's automation builder in it.
MailerLite: the same job, on a smaller bill
MailerLite is a general email tool that has grown into newsletter territory: automations, landing pages, a website builder, and paid newsletters and digital products sold through Stripe with no commission taken. It is not a publication platform in beehiiv's sense, but for a newsletter that sends well and charges a little, it does the job cheaply.
- Best for: writers who want automations and paid newsletters without paying for a growth platform.
- Pricing structure: a free plan capped by subscribers and monthly sends, then paid plans priced by subscribers; selling is on the paid plans.
- What you give up: beehiiv's growth side: we could not find a recommendation network or an ad network in MailerLite, and sending is capped on its cheaper paid plan. Its free plan is also smaller than beehiiv's.
Buttondown: small, indie and writer-first
Buttondown is a small, independent newsletter tool with a loyal following among writers and developers: write in Markdown, send, and charge through Stripe. It takes no cut of paid subscriptions, and it bills only for active subscribers.
- Best for: writers who want a quiet, fast tool without a growth machine attached.
- Pricing structure: free for a very small list, then priced by subscriber count, with paid subscriptions sold as an add-on to the plan.
- What you give up: beehiiv's website builder and growth machinery. Buttondown has sponsorship tools, but we could not find an ad network of the kind beehiiv runs. It is a sender, deliberately.
Drry: when readers become members (ours)
Our product, so treat this as a pitch with numbers you can check. Drry is not a newsletter platform. It has no public archive of your posts for search to find, no ad network and no recommendation network, so a writer whose newsletter is the whole product should pick one of the tools above. It is for the writer who wants paying members rather than only paying subscribers: a community feed they log into, courses, audio and events, with your broadcasts sent from the same place. More at Drry email.
- Best for: writers who want to sell a membership, a course or coaching to their readers, and to charge from day one.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with no card (100 members, 500 contacts, 700 marketing sends a month), then Creator at $29 a month (25,000 contacts, 60,000 sends, automations) and Growth at $99 (no contact cap, 500,000 sends, email from your own domain). Members never count as contacts, and 0% of member payments on every plan, free included, paid into your own Stripe account.
- What you give up: beehiiv's free plan holds more subscribers than ours holds contacts, and its ad network, recommendations, referral programme and publication website have no equivalent here. See Drry vs beehiiv for the full side-by-side.
How do you choose a beehiiv alternative?
Moving is mostly mechanical: export your subscribers, import them, and reconnect Stripe for the paying ones. Our guide to moving your email list to a new platform walks through it. Still deciding between the two biggest names? See beehiiv vs Substack.
Questions coaches ask
What is the best beehiiv alternative?
It depends on why you are leaving. For discovery and a network that grows you, Substack. For a bigger free list and deeper automations, Kit. For owning the whole stack, Ghost. For a smaller bill on a plainer sender, MailerLite. For a minimal, indie newsletter, Buttondown. And if the newsletter exists to sell a course or a paid community, Drry (we make it, so weigh that). beehiiv itself is excellent; most writers leave over the price of charging, not the quality of the product.
Is there a free alternative to beehiiv?
Several, and they are free in different ways. Substack costs nothing to publish on and takes a percentage once you charge. Kit's free plan holds up to 10,000 subscribers, against 2,500 on beehiiv's free Launch plan. MailerLite and Buttondown have smaller free plans. Drry's free plan lets you charge members from day one and takes 0% of what they pay, which beehiiv's free plan cannot do at all.
Why do writers leave beehiiv?
Mostly the cost of charging. Paid subscriptions, the ad network and digital products are all on beehiiv's paid plans, which start at $49 a month billed monthly and rise with every subscriber tier, so a writer who wants to take their first $5 subscription pays a plan price first. The others leave because they want the discovery of Substack's network, or a place readers log into rather than an inbox.
Is Substack or beehiiv better?
Substack is better for discovery: its network recommends publications to readers, and publishing costs nothing until you charge. beehiiv is better for growth tools and economics once you earn: it takes 0% of paid subscriptions on its paid plans, where Substack takes a percentage for as long as you stay. Our beehiiv pricing guide works out the break-even between the two.
Can I move my beehiiv subscribers to another platform?
Yes. beehiiv exports your subscribers as a CSV, and every platform on this list imports one. Paid subscribers are the careful part: they live in your Stripe account, so moving them means reconnecting that Stripe account or asking readers to subscribe again. Drry's import maps the columns, reads a tags column if your file has one, and moves unsubscribed people onto your blocked list rather than importing them.