Affiliate note: Occono may earn a commission if you use the beehiiv or Make links on this page, at no extra cost to you. The Substack links are not affiliate links. Occono does not earn from Substack. Affiliate disclosure.
Quick summary
It depends on the job, and on how much readers pay
Best for writers who want reach, and no monthly fee:Substack. Publishing is free at any number of subscribers. Readers can find you in the Substack app and through other publications' recommendations. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of that revenue. We do not earn from Substack.
Best for a small business or creator who wants their own site, automations, and to keep subscription revenue once it covers a monthly plan:beehiiv. Paid subscriptions are not on the free plan. On Lite and above, beehiiv says it takes 0% of paid subscription revenue. You pay the plan, and you pay Stripe. At the prices checked on 19 October 2026, Lite is $49 a month on yearly billing for up to 1,000 subscribers.
beehiiv does not keep more at every size. On our own arithmetic, below, Substack's 10% is the smaller bill until subscription revenue is about $490 a month.
The list is small, you want strangers to find the writing, and you do not want a monthly bill
Substack
The newsletter is part of a small business, and subscription money is large enough that 10% would cost more than the plan
beehiiv
Both tools will send a newsletter without a monthly fee. The bill changes when a reader pays you, and when you want a website, automations, or your own web address. Prices below are in US dollars, as the vendors publish them. A UK Stripe account does not pay the US card fee those pages quote.
What public reviews say
These are third-party scores, read on 19 October 2026. They are other people's reviews. Occono has not collected them, and they will move. Trustpilot says, on both of these profiles, that the company has not been inviting customers, so the reviews may not be representative.
Source
beehiiv
Substack
Capterra UK, read 19 October 2026
4.4 out of 5, 16 reviews. Of those, the page lists 10 at 5 stars, 3 at 4, 2 at 3, and 1 at 2.
No Capterra UK score is listed here. A Substack page on Capterra UK was not used for this article.
Trustpilot, read 19 October 2026
3.9 out of 5, 413 reviews. Trustpilot's label on that score is “Great”. On the page, 66% are five-star and 23% are one-star. The profile says beehiiv replied to 95% of negative reviews, typically within a week.
1.4 out of 5, 182 reviews. Trustpilot's label on that score is “Bad”. On the page, 90% are one-star and 4% are five-star.
G2, read 19 October 2026
No G2 score is listed here.
No G2 score is listed here. The Substack reviews page returned a bot check, not a rating.
Search snippets for these Trustpilot profiles did not match the pages. beehiiv's profile showed 3.9 from 413 reviews, not the 4.2 or 4.0 figures that turn up in snippets. Substack's profile showed 1.4 from 182 reviews, not a 1.3. Those snippet figures are left out.
Substack's 1.4 is a harsh score, and it is not a clean survey of writers. Trustpilot's own summary of 74 reviews on that page says most reviewers were let down, that chatbots failed to resolve billing disputes, that people were charged unexpectedly, and that cancelling was difficult. A smaller group on that same summary were glad of the writing and of running a blog. Many of the recent reviews are from readers, not from people publishing a newsletter. James Whiter's review, quoted below, is one of those billing complaints. Read it as a reader problem, then decide if you still want the app and the network.
beehiiv's Trustpilot page is split a different way. Recent five-star reviews on the page include people running a newsletter. Recent one-star reviews include people who say they were emailed by newsletters they never joined. That is a reader complaint about mail sent through the platform, and it sits inside the 23% one-star share. Capterra's 4.4 is from 16 software reviews, a small count, and it is the kinder of the two beehiiv scores.
“Beehiiv has been a very good platform for running Burnley Briefs. It’s straightforward to use, has strong newsletter and website tools, useful analytics, and makes managing subscribers and paid products much easier.”
Scott Weldon, Trustpilot, 22 September 2026. Link to the review. Checked 19 October 2026.
“I really enjoy the user interface for Beehiiv. I was on another platform before and it was really generic looking. I like that I can publish articles to a site or to our newsletter list together or separately. I'm also looking forward to using the ad network.”
natalia, Trustpilot, 8 October 2026, on the same beehiiv profile. Link to the review.
“In early October beehiiv renamed and restructured its tiers — Launch/Scale/Max became Free/Lite/Pro — and the guest author allowance on the free plan dropped to one.”
Khila James, Trustpilot, 9 October 2026. Link to the review. The same review says the documentation listed different limits on different pages. On 19 October 2026 the pricing comparison still listed one guest author on Free, three on Lite, and unlimited on Pro.
beehiiv’s plan comparison, captured 20 October 2026. Details change; check the current page.
“I have been billed for a Substack subscription for £75 for 'Books of Titans' I canceled as soon as I saw the error can you help me. I'm a pensioner and cannot afford it. Please help me.”
James Whiter, Trustpilot, 19 September 2026. Link to the review. This is a reader's billing complaint, not a publisher's review of the writing tools.
What you actually get
Checked 19 October 2026 on beehiiv's pricing page and on Substack's help articles. Where beehiiv's own page disagrees with itself, the cell says so. Prices are US dollars.
beehiiv
Substack
Free plan limits
$0, no card, and it does not expire. Up to 2,500 subscribers. Unlimited email sends. One publication. Newsletter, website, and podcast tools are on the free plan. Paid subscriptions are not.
Publishing is free, with no subscriber cap stated on the cost page. You pay Substack only if you turn on paid subscriptions.
Revenue cut on paid subscriptions
0% of paid subscription revenue, and 0% of digital product revenue, on the pricing FAQ. Paid subscriptions start on Lite, not on Free. The pricing data marks that 0% take rate as not included in the trial.
10% of each subscription payment, once paid subscriptions are on. For purchases in the iOS app, that 10% is based on the web price. Readers may pay more in the app, to cover Apple's fee. You choose whether the in-app price goes up.
Payment processing
beehiiv's FAQ quotes Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. That is the US-style figure on beehiiv's page. It is not a UK card fee.
Stripe, on top of the 10%. The cost article, updated 29 September 2026, quotes 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment, plus Stripe Billing at 0.7% on recurring payments. It says other fees depend on the country of the Stripe account. The same article gives US-account examples for iDEAL, Bancontact, Sofort, and SEPA.
Custom domain
Ambiguous on beehiiv's own page. The Free feature list includes “Custom Domains”. The comparison table marks custom domains as Lite and above, for both the newsletter and the website. The short Free card does not mention them. Treat this as Lite and above, per the comparison table, until beehiiv makes the page agree with itself.
Optional. A one-time $50, on the cost article.
Website
A website builder is on every plan, including Free. The comparison table lists 1 custom page on Free, 5 on Lite, and unlimited on Pro.
You can publish on a profile or on a custom website. The website editor can show your Substack URL as a profile mirror or as a custom theme with your layouts and logos. Help article updated 17 August 2026.
Automations
None on Free. The comparison table lists 10 live custom automations on Lite and unlimited on Pro, including a branch, a delay, and triggers such as a new signup or a product purchase.
No builder for your own multi-step automations was on the help pages checked. There are welcome emails for free, paid, imported, and founding subscribers (help updated 16 September 2026). With payments on, Substack Boost can send an automated upsell email to about 0.1% of the list each day, and can offer a free month when someone is about to cancel. Boost appears when you turn payments on, and you can turn it off. Help updated 4 June 2026.
Ads, recommendations, referrals
The recommendation network is on every plan, including Free. A referral programme is Lite and above: 3 reward milestones on Lite, unlimited on Pro. The ad network is Lite and above. The pricing data says it is not in the trial and not in every region, so do not assume it is available in the UK. The Lite and Pro cards label ad monetisation “Avg. $39/mo”. That is beehiiv's label, not a sum this page has checked.
Recommendations between publications are a built-in feature: they can show in the subscribe flow, on the homepage, and in a digest. Help updated 2 March 2026. A help article updated 26 January 2023 says Substack does not build extra tools for affiliate links or advertising in emails, and does not want publications that exist only to advertise. The podcast help, updated 18 October 2026, does describe a sponsored version of an episode for free listeners, with an ad-free version for paid subscribers. Those two pages are not the same claim.
Podcast
On every plan. The comparison table lists 5,000 monthly downloads and 1 show on Free, 15,000 downloads and 2 shows on Lite, and 50,000 downloads and unlimited shows on Pro. Audio newsletters are Pro.
You can publish a podcast on the publication and submit it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other apps. Help updated 18 October 2026. A Substack podcast cannot be embedded on an external site. An episode can still be sent to those podcast apps.
Digital products
The pricing FAQ says digital products are included on every plan, and that the limits change as you move up. The comparison table lists 1 product on Free, 3 on Lite, and unlimited on Pro, with one-time purchases on Free. The shorter Lite feature list also names Digital Products as something added on Lite. Read the live page before you rely on a free-plan product.
The Substack help pages checked for this article do not describe a shop for digital products.
Branding removal
Pro and Enterprise. The pricing data marks “Remove beehiiv Branding” as not included in the trial. The FAQ says this covers the newsletter and the website.
The pages checked do not describe a switch that removes Substack branding from the publication.
Discovery network
The recommendation network is on the free plan. Paid recommendations are listed on Lite and above, and the Lite feature list marks Recommendations as not in the trial and not in every region.
The publishing guide, updated 17 August 2026, says you can get subscribers from the Substack network. Posts can go out on the web and in the Substack iOS and Android apps. Notes on a profile are public. Recommendations, above, are the other route.
beehiiv prices, limits, and the contradictory custom-domain lines: beehiiv.com/pricing, including the plan comparison beehiiv serves from that URL. Checked 19 October 2026. The visible cards, with the subscriber control on 1,000 and yearly billing selected, showed Lite at $49 a month and Pro at $95 a month. The page's offer data lists the monthly prices as $59 for Lite and $109 for Pro. The FAQ says paid plans start at $59 a month, and that yearly billing saves up to 20% against paying month to month. At the 1,000-subscriber tier the two published figures are $59 and $49, which is not a 20% gap, so “up to 20%” is the page's own ceiling, not the discount at that tier.
beehiiv’s pricing page, with 1,000 subscribers and yearly billing selected, captured 20 October 2026. Prices change; check the current page.
Substack’s help article on what Substack costs, captured 20 October 2026. Prices change; check the current page.
UK card fees, if your Stripe account is in the UK: Stripe's UK pricing page lists 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards and 2.5% + 20p for EU cards on the standard pay-as-you-go plan. Premium UK cards are listed at 2.8% + 20p. Checked 19 October 2026. Do not budget the American 2.9% + $0.30 figure for a UK Stripe account.
Stripe’s UK pricing page, captured 20 October 2026. Prices change; check the current page.
The offer
beehiiv. Free plan: $0, no card, up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends. Lite and Pro include a free trial, with no card, and the trial ends when you upgrade. The page does not say how many days that trial lasts, so this article does not state a length. Some paid features are marked “not in trial”, including the 0% take rate, the ad network, and removing beehiiv branding. With the page set to 1,000 subscribers and yearly billing, on 19 October 2026, Lite showed $49 a month and Pro showed $95 a month. The pricing data on that URL lists the yearly totals at that tier as $588 for Lite and $1,140 for Pro, and the monthly prices as $59 and $109. The price steps up with the list. At up to 2,500 subscribers the same data lists Lite at $79 a month, or $69 a month on yearly billing ($828 for the year). Lite is sold through 100,000 subscribers. Pro is sold through 250,000. Enterprise is custom.
Substack. Publishing is free at any subscriber count on the cost article. There is no monthly plan price on that page. Paid subscriptions cost 10% of subscription revenue, plus Stripe. An optional custom domain is a one-time $50. Readers who subscribe in the iOS app may pay more than the web price. No separate trial of a paid Substack plan is described on the cost page, because the publishing account itself is free.
A worked example, Occono's own arithmetic. It uses the US dollar prices above. It ignores Stripe, tax, and the iOS markup. One hundred paying subscribers at $5 a month is $500 a month. Substack's 10% of that is $50 a month. beehiiv Lite, at the up-to-1,000 tier on yearly billing, is $49 a month, and beehiiv's stated cut of the $500 is $0. At this size the two platform costs are about the same, before Stripe. The crossover is $490 a month of subscription revenue: 10% of $490 is $49. Under that, Substack's 10% is the smaller bill. Forty people at $5 is $200 a month, and 10% of that is $20, which is less than $49. The $49 figure only holds while the whole list, free and paid, stays in the up-to-1,000 bucket. Past 1,000, the Lite yearly price in the pricing data is $69 a month at the next published tier.
Which one fits you?
Scott Weldon's September 2026 review, quoted above, is a local newsletter that wanted the site and the subscriber tools in one place. Khila James's October 2026 review is the other side: a free-plan limit changed, and the help pages did not all say the same thing. James Whiter's review is a reader who was billed and could not see an easy way back. Scott Weldon and Khila James are closer to a one-person publisher than a software-buyer score is.
A café or a trades business, sending one letter a month to people who already buy from you. You are not charging for the letter. Both free plans cover that. Substack does not cap the subscriber count on the cost page. beehiiv's free plan stops at 2,500, which a local list will not hit quickly. Neither takes a cut if nobody is paying for the newsletter. The Substack app will not fill the tables. If the letter should also live on your own web address, Substack's custom domain is a one-time $50. beehiiv's comparison table puts custom domains on Lite and above, even though the Free feature list also names them. If the letter later has to update a booking sheet, Make can connect beehiiv to the other tool. That is a second product, and a second bill once you leave Make's free plan.
A freelance writer starting a paid newsletter. Discovery is the part Substack is built for: the app, notes, and recommendations from other publications, with no monthly fee. You give up 10% once readers pay. Twenty people at $5 a month is $100, and 10% of that is $10. Forty people is $20. Both are under beehiiv Lite at $49 a month. beehiiv keeps more of each payment only after the 10% is larger than the plan, and only if the list is still in a tier you can afford. If being found matters more than the cut this year, start on Substack. Move if the 10% is clearly the dearer line, and export the list before you do. Khila James's review is the reason to read the current limits on the day you move, not the limits from a screenshot last month.
A coach selling a digital product next to the letter. beehiiv's FAQ says digital products are on every plan, and the comparison table lists one product on Free and three on Lite. Substack's help, on the pages checked, does not describe a product shop. If the product is a single file and the letter is the business, beehiiv can hold both, with the free-plan contradiction noted above. If you need a sales page, a checkout, and a course, a newsletter tool is the wrong stack. The Kit and Systeme.io comparison on this site is the closer question.
A hobby writer who wants readers, not a brand site. Substack. Publishing is free, the app is where other readers already are, and you pay nothing until you charge. The 10% only starts when you turn paid subscriptions on. beehiiv's free plan is a reasonable writing tool up to 2,500 subscribers, and it includes a simple site. It does not put you in the Substack app. Use beehiiv if you already know who the readers are. Use Substack if you do not.
Where Substack is the better buy
Substack wins when the list is small, when you want strangers to find the writing, and when you do not want a monthly bill. Free publishing at any subscriber count is a wider free plan than beehiiv's 2,500. The app, notes, and recommendations are the product. The 10% is the price of that, and it is cheaper than Lite until subscription revenue is about $490 a month. The Trustpilot score of 1.4 from 182 reviews is the reason to watch billing. Turn paid subscriptions on only when you mean to, and read how a reader cancels before you ask anyone else to subscribe. The iOS price can be higher than the price you set on the web.
beehiiv wins when the newsletter is part of a small business: a site, a referral programme, automations, and a product, and when the subscription money is large enough that 10% would cost more than the plan. Lite at $49 a month on yearly billing, for up to 1,000 subscribers, is the first plan that includes paid subscriptions and the 0% take rate. You still pay Stripe. The ad network is not promised in every country, and it is marked as outside the trial. Removing the beehiiv branding waits until Pro, at $95 a month on yearly billing for that same 1,000-subscriber tier. The free trial of Lite and Pro does not have a published length on beehiiv's pricing page. Custom domains are Lite and above on the comparison table, despite the Free list. Khila James's review, and that contradiction, are the same warning: read the comparison table on the day you pay, and export the list if the limits move.
Pick one. Two newsletters means two lists, and a reader who unsubscribes from one of them is still on the other.
