beehiiv vs Kit: which fits how you actually make money?

Published on August 30, 2026 by Affiliate Inventory

Kit — the platform formerly called ConvertKit — and beehiiv get compared constantly, and the comparison is usually done badly, because the two are optimised for different businesses rather than different budgets.

The short answer

Kit is for creators who sell things. beehiiv is for creators whose audience is the thing.

If your newsletter drives people toward a course, a coaching offer, a template pack or a physical product, Kit is built around that motion. If your newsletter is the product — sponsorships, paid subscriptions, an audience you monetise directly — beehiiv is built around that one.

Start with the number that surprises people

Kit’s free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers. Not 250, not 2,500 — ten thousand, with unlimited broadcasts, unlimited landing pages and forms, tagging and segmentation, and the ability to sell digital products and subscriptions.

beehiiv’s free Launch plan stops at 2,500.

So for a large number of newsletters, Kit is free where beehiiv is $43/month. That is a real argument and you should not let anyone talk you past it. What the free plan doesn’t include is Kit’s visual automations and sequences, which are on Creator ($33/month at 1,000 subscribers) and above — and Kit prices by list size, so that figure climbs as you grow.

beehiiv’s paid plans hold flat to 100,000 subscribers. Kit’s rise with every subscriber. The two lines cross somewhere in the mid five figures, and after that beehiiv is dramatically cheaper.

How each one makes you money

Kit: sell digital products and subscriptions directly, at 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction. Tag buyers, trigger sequences off purchases, run a tip jar. On the Pro plan there’s Paid Recommendations and sponsorship matching. It is, fundamentally, a commerce-shaped email tool.

beehiiv: an Ad Network that matches sponsors to your newsletter without you selling anything, a sponsorship storefront, boosts, paid subscriptions at a 0% take rate on Scale and above, digital products and community. It is, fundamentally, a media-shaped email tool.

Note the difference in take rates on subscriptions: Kit charges 3.5% + 30¢ on what you sell, beehiiv charges nothing on paid subscriptions once you’re on Scale. On $2,000/month of subscriptions that’s roughly $70 versus $0. On the other hand, Kit is free at list sizes where beehiiv is $43 — you may well be paying that $70 out of money you saved on rent.

Growth

Both have recommendation networks — Kit’s Creator Network, beehiiv’s Recommendations — and both work. beehiiv adds boosts, where you can pay for qualified subscribers or get paid to send them, and a website builder producing an archive search engines index. Kit’s growth story leans harder on landing pages and forms, which assume you already have traffic.

If growth is your bottleneck rather than monetisation, beehiiv has more machinery pointed at it.

Where each one wins

Choose Kit if you sell your own products, you need automations tied to what people buy, you’re under 10,000 subscribers and want to stay free, or your business already runs on tags and sequences.

Choose beehiiv if you want sponsors and ads without a sales process, you’re taking paid subscriptions and object to a percentage, your list is heading past the mid five figures, or you want your archive working as an SEO asset.

Choose either if you’re under a thousand subscribers and undecided. Kit’s free tier costs you nothing to find out.

The honest caveat

The gap between these two is narrower than partisans of either will tell you. Both send email well, both have recommendation networks, both let you sell things. The decision is really about which monetisation motion you’re building toward — and if you don’t know yet, that’s an argument for the free option while you find out.