Affiliate Inventory | beehiiv vs MailerLite

The short answer

Send a referral to beehiiv and you earn roughly twice as much per month — but only for twelve months. Send one to MailerLite and you earn half as much, with no end date.

Run the arithmetic on a $50/month subscription. beehiiv at 50% pays $25/month for 12 months: $300, then nothing. MailerLite at 30% pays $15/month indefinitely: $180 in year one, $360 by year two, $540 by year three. The crossover is around month 25.

So the real question isn’t which rate is higher. It’s how long your referrals stay subscribed.

Before the terms: what your readers get

Anyone who starts beehiiv through our link gets a 14-day free trial on a paid plan, then 20% off for their first three months. No code, no form — the discount is attached to the link and applies at checkout.

That matters on both sides of this page. If you’re choosing a platform, it’s two and a half months of a cheaper bill while you find out whether the thing works. And if you’re choosing which program to promote, an offer your audience can’t get by typing the domain into their browser is the single biggest thing separating a link people click from a link people ignore.

Start beehiiv — 14-day trial + 20% off for 3 months →

MailerLite has no equivalent. Its answer to the same problem is a low entry price — a free plan capped at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, then $12/month — which is a real advantage at small list sizes, but it pays you nothing until the referral upgrades.

When beehiiv wins

• Your audience churns, or you can’t tell. Money now beats money later when “later” is uncertain. Twelve months of 50% is a bird in the hand.
• You’re promoting at volume. Higher per-referral payouts compound into the tier ladder, and Gold at 60% is a genuinely strong rate.
• You want to reinvest. Front-loaded income funds the next campaign; a lifetime trickle doesn’t.
• You need a hook. The trial-plus-discount gives the recommendation a reason to be acted on today rather than bookmarked.

When MailerLite wins

• Your audience is sticky. Small businesses that adopt an email platform tend to stay for years. Past month 25, every additional month is pure upside.
• You’re building an asset, not a campaign. Evergreen content — a tutorial that ranks, a comparison post — keeps paying on referrals you made years ago.
• Cash flow matters. Weekly settlement beats waiting for the 15th.

The traps

beehiiv’s 60% is not your rate. It’s the top of a four-step ladder you climb by lifetime conversions. You start at Launch, whose rate isn’t published. Plan around 50%, not 60%.

MailerLite’s threshold has a shape. It isn’t just $100 — it’s $100 from at least two unique sales across two different referrals. One large referral won’t unlock a payout on its own, which stings if you convert slowly.

MailerLite’s cheap entry cuts both ways. It makes the recommendation easy and the signup cheap, but a free or $12/month referral is a small commission base, and free users pay you nothing at all until they upgrade. Signups are a bad proxy for earnings here.

beehiiv prohibits branded search ads. If paid search on brand terms is your channel, that’s disqualifying — read the terms before you build the campaign, not after.

Promoting both

There’s no reason to pick one. They serve adjacent audiences: beehiiv for people whose newsletter is the product, MailerLite for people whose newsletter supports a product. Segment on that and both convert better than either would alone.

Choosing a platform rather than a program? The longer write-up is beehiiv vs MailerLite: which one should you build your newsletter on?