Substack vs beehiiv is mostly a choice between paying with a percentage and paying with a plan fee. Substack costs nothing to publish and keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue, according to its cost page, while beehiiv's pricing page lists monthly plans and says it takes 0% of subscriptions. Ghost(Pro) also charges plan fees with no Ghost transaction fee, and Kit adds a per-sale commerce fee to its plans. This comparison reads all four from their own pages as checked on 1 October 2026, then gives you a worksheet to find which is cheaper at your own subscriber count.
Cost comparison as published on 1 October 2026
Plan prices on beehiiv, Ghost(Pro) and Kit rise with the size of your list. The prices below are the ones each page displays at its 1,000-subscriber or 1,000-member setting, in US dollars, so move each slider to your own count before deciding anything.
| Platform | Free option | Entry paid plan | Cut of paid subscriptions | Card processing | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack | Free to publish however large the list gets | No plan fee; costs begin once readers pay | 10% taken from every subscription payment | 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment, plus Stripe Billing at 0.7% on recurring payments | Substack: How much does Substack cost? |
| beehiiv | Free plan capped at 2,500 subscribers | Lite at $49 a month and Pro at $95 a month, each on yearly billing | 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue | Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction | beehiiv pricing and FAQ |
| Ghost(Pro) | No free plan on Ghost's managed hosting | Starter at $18 a month billed yearly, though paid subscriptions start on Publisher at $29 | 0% transaction fees charged by Ghost | Stripe's own processing fees, which Ghost quotes as 2.9% + 30¢ | Ghost(Pro) pricing and transaction fee FAQ |
| Kit | Free plan covering lists of up to 10,000 subscribers | Creator at $39 a month and Pro at $79 a month on monthly billing | No separate cut; every commerce sale carries a transaction fee instead | 3.5% + $0.30 per USD transaction, which Kit says already covers card processing | Kit: Creator vs Pro and Kit commerce FAQ |
Two details catch out older comparisons. Substack's cost page now lists Stripe Billing's recurring-payment fee as its own line, so totals that only subtract 10% and the card fee understate what leaves each payment. And beehiiv's pricing page now names its paid tiers Lite and Pro, while several beehiiv help articles still refer to the earlier Scale and Max plans; any guide quoting a Scale price was written before the current page.
Ownership: domains, sending addresses and exports
Fees are half the decision. The other half is how much of your identity sits on the platform's domain and what you can take with you if you leave.
| Platform | Custom web domain | Sending address | Subscriber export | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack | One-time $50 fee, with the publication hosted on a subdomain such as www | Stays on your substack.com address even after a custom domain is connected | CSV of all columns or visible columns, but subscriber names cannot be exported | Substack custom domains and list export |
| beehiiv | Web, redirect and branded-link domains through a guided setup aimed at paid plans | Your own email domain once its DNS records verify and it is set as in use | Quick or Full CSV, the full version adding custom fields and statistics | beehiiv custom domains and data export |
| Ghost(Pro) | Included on every Ghost(Pro) plan through a CNAME record | Custom sending domain listed from the Publisher plan upward | Members CSV that includes each member's Stripe customer ID | Ghost(Pro) plan table and Ghost exports |
| Kit | Custom domain listed on both the Creator and Pro plans | Not covered on the plan pages checked, so confirm with Kit before moving | CSV export by bulk action, with a download link that expires after five days | Kit plan comparison and Kit export guide |
Paying subscribers are the hardest part of any move. Ghost's member import guide accepts a stripe_customer_id column so existing paying members can be matched to their Stripe records, and beehiiv's migration page says paid subscribers transfer through Stripe with billing uninterrupted. Substack's export, by contrast, leaves out names, so if you personalise greetings you will need to collect names again after a move. Test any migration with a handful of your own addresses first.
Growth networks and ad tools
Each platform has its own way of putting you in front of new readers and its own way, or none, of selling ad space for you.
- Substack. Recommendations show your chosen publications to new subscribers during sign-up, on your homepage and in digest emails, and Substack's page on getting featured says a creator who makes a recommendation is 3x more likely to receive one. The help articles checked describe no built-in ad marketplace.
- beehiiv. Free recommendations are on every plan, while paid recommendations, the feature formerly called Boosts, and the Ad Network both need a paid plan. Our guide to the beehiiv Ad Network and Boosts explains offers, payouts and the Wallet.
- Ghost(Pro). Ghost's Recommendations feature shows a pop-up of sites you recommend whenever a new member signs up, sites on every plan are listed in the Ghost Explore directory, and Publisher plans and above can add outside ad networks.
- Kit. The Creator Network lets you recommend other creators on every plan, and Kit's pricing page lists a 23.5% fee on Paid Recommendations earnings, which need a paid plan. Our guide to Kit for creators covers its sponsorship programme and free plan limits.
Discovery is hard to price, which is why it is left out of the worksheet below. If you are starting with no audience, a network that recommends you to readers of similar newsletters can matter more than a few percentage points of fees; once you have a steady paying audience, the fee lines usually matter more.
Fee worksheet: run your own numbers
Fill in your own figures. The worksheet compares what each platform would keep and makes no prediction about what you will earn.
| Line | What to enter or calculate | Applies to | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Paying subscribers you realistically expect over the next year | All four platforms | Your own plan |
| P | Average monthly price each paying reader pays after discounts | All four platforms | Your own plan |
| G | Gross yearly subscription revenue, worked out as A × P × 12 | All four platforms | Your own plan |
| Platform cut | 10% × G | Substack only | Substack fee table |
| Plan cost | The yearly price the pricing slider shows for your total list, free and paying subscribers together | beehiiv, Ghost(Pro) and Kit | Each pricing page, at your list size |
| Card fees | 2.9% of everything charged plus $0.30 for each individual charge, or Stripe's rate in your country | Substack, beehiiv and Ghost(Pro) | Ghost fee answer, matching the Substack and beehiiv pages |
| Billing fee | 0.7% of recurring payments as Substack lists it; on other platforms, look for it in your Stripe dashboard | Substack, and possibly others | Substack Stripe Billing line |
| Commerce fee | 3.5% of each USD sale plus $0.30, with card processing already inside it | Kit only | Kit selling FAQ |
| Total kept by others | Platform cut or plan cost, plus every fee line that applies | Compare the four totals side by side | The lines above |
The break-even test between Substack and a plan-fee platform is short: Substack stays cheaper while its cut of G is lower than the yearly plan cost at your list size. The two sides scale with different things. beehiiv's pricing FAQ counts unique email addresses subscribed to your publication and Ghost(Pro) counts every free or paid member, so their plan cost follows your whole list, while Substack's cut follows only paying readers. A large free list with few paying readers therefore tends to favour Substack; a smaller list with many paying readers tends to favour the plan-fee platforms. Our guide to Substack paid subscriptions covers in-app purchase pricing, founding members and other details that move Substack's side of the sum.
Which platform fits which creator
| If this sounds like you | Lean towards | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You want to start free with a big list and may never charge | Substack or Kit's Free plan | Substack publishing is free at any size and Kit's Free plan reaches 10,000 subscribers |
| You expect a large share of readers to pay | beehiiv or Ghost(Pro) | A flat plan fee with nothing taken from each subscription |
| You want ad income without selling sponsorships yourself | beehiiv or Kit | Both run ad marketplaces for publishers on their paid plans |
| You want your own domain to be the permanent home of your work | Ghost(Pro) or beehiiv | Both support a custom web domain and your own sending domain |
| You mainly sell templates, presets or courses to your list | Kit | Commerce is available on every Kit plan, Free included |
| You want new readers to find you inside an app | Substack | Its app, category leaderboards and recommendation network all surface publications to readers |
If you have not launched yet, settle the positioning, cadence and first issues before choosing; our plan for starting a newsletter covers those steps, and our overview of newsletter revenue options shows which money tools matter for each platform.
Limitations of this comparison
Prices and plan names were read from each provider's pages on 1 October 2026 in US dollars at the default list size each pricing page shows, and they change; beehiiv has renamed its plans while some of its own help articles still use the older names. Taxes, currency conversion, refunds, chargebacks and app-store fees are left out, and Stripe's fees vary by country and payment method, so your real totals will differ.
The comparison also limits itself to four hosted platforms and to what their public pages say. Self-hosting Ghost, using a general email service or adding a separate membership tool changes the maths, and the value of a discovery network cannot be reduced to a fee line. Treat the worksheet as a way to compare costs, not as a prediction of income, and confirm anything critical with the provider before you migrate a paying audience.