beehiiv review
by beehiiv Inc.Email marketing and newsletters
A newsletter platform with a website, ad network, paid subscriptions and referral program; free up to 2,500 subscribers, Lite $109 a month for 5,000.
- Free plan
- No card needed
- Self-serve
- Tiered
- Public prices
What you're paying for
- Built-in reach (main value)
- Saves engineering time
A newsletter business in one place: website, ad network, paid subscriptions, referrals and recommendations, with unlimited sends on every plan.
beehiiv bundles what a newsletter publisher would otherwise assemble from several tools: a website and landing pages, a recommendation network, a referral program, an ad network that monetizes sends, paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate and digital products. Sends are unlimited on every plan, and you pay by subscriber tier: Lite is $109 a month for up to 5,000 subscribers, or $95 billed yearly. The trust center offers a SOC 2 Type 2 report, achieved in January 2026.
- Ad network and recommendationsFrom Lite, the beehiiv ad network monetizes sends, and the recommendation network and referral program help grow the list.Evidence: Pricing page plan cards and comparison (2026-10-16)
- Website and paid subscriptions built inEvery plan includes a website, podcast hosting, a community and digital products; Lite adds paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, minus Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30.Evidence: Pricing page FAQ and comparison (2026-10-16)
- Unlimited sends on every planThe FAQ says every plan includes unlimited email sends, so sending more often does not raise the bill.Evidence: Pricing page FAQ (2026-10-16)
- Best for
- Newsletter publishers who want to earn from ads and paid subscriptions and run their website from the same place.
- Good to know
- Removing beehiiv branding starts on Pro, and SSO, audit logs and role permissions are on Enterprise only.
How beehiiv compares
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Email marketing and newsletters: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | beehiiv | Klaviyo | Brevo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Built-in reachA newsletter business in one place: website, ad network, paid subscriptions, referrals and recommendations, with unlimited sends on every plan. | Saves engineering timeEmail marketing on top of a customer data platform: store and order data drive segments and flows, with SOC 2 Type II, SSO and MFA on paid plans. | Worth the priceEmail marketing, SMS and automation priced by emails sent rather than contacts stored, with servers in the EU and an ISO 27001 certificate. | Easy to adoptAn all-round email marketing tool with forms, landing pages, automation flows and 300+ integrations, priced by how many contacts you store. |
| Overall score | 6.2 | 7.4Best | 7.2 | 6.9 |
| Free option | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | No card needed | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $59/mo | $20/mo | $9/mo | $13/mo |
| Pricing model | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Subscriber tier; unlimited sends | Active profile tier, with a monthly email limit | Monthly email volume tier; contacts up to the plan limit | Contact tier, with a monthly email limit of 10 to 15 times the contacts |
| Free plan | 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, welcome email only | 250 active profiles, 500 emails/mo, flows included | 100,000 contacts, 300 emails a day, automation up to 2,000 contacts | 250 contacts, 500 emails/mo (250 a day), no automation flows |
| Reference scenario (5,000 contacts, monthly) | $109/mo on Lite (up to 5,000 subscribers) | $100/mo (3,501 to 5,000 active profiles, 50,000 emails) | $79/mo on Standard ($18 + $61 for 20,001 to 30,000 emails) | $100/mo on Standard (60,000 emails) |
| Annual billing | Up to 20% off ($95/mo for the scenario on Lite) | Not stated on the pricing page | About 10% off ($853 a year for the scenario, computed) | Through sales only (Premium, or Standard with 10,000+ contacts) |
| Automation on the cheapest paid plan | Lite: 10 live custom automations | Flows on every plan | Starter: limited to 2,000 contacts; unlimited from Standard | Essentials: flows of up to 4 steps |
| Users on the scenario plan | 2 seats on Lite; 10 on Pro | Not stated; custom roles on all plans | 1 user; up to 3 at $12/mo each | 5 seats, 4 roles |
| SMS | Not offered | Mobile messages billed by credits; $5 a month on the free plan | Every plan; credits sold separately by destination | Add-on from Essentials in select countries; credits billed separately |
| Paid newsletters | From Lite, 0% take rate (Stripe fees apply) | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type 2 (since Jan 22, 2026); ISO 27001 not stated | SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 | ISO 27001:2022; SOC 2 not stated | SOC 2 reports (type not stated); ISO 27001 |
| Data location | United States (AWS) | United States; Germany for new accounts (EU Residency) | Servers in the EU | United States |
| SSO | Enterprise only | SAML on any paid plan | Add-on on Professional (price not published); included on Enterprise | Enterprise SSO on Premium |
| Contact export | Data exports on every plan | CSV export of lists and segments | Export button in the account; Export contacts API endpoint | CSV export of audiences, segments, tags and groups |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, beehiiv is a newsletter business platform with unlimited sends and monetization from Lite, backed by a SOC 2 Type 2 report. Branding removal starts on Pro and team controls on Enterprise. | From its public pages, Klaviyo pairs email and SMS with a customer data platform, with flows on the free plan and SOC 2 Type II, SSO and MFA on paid plans. Its user limit is not stated and its pages disagree on EU storage. | From its public pages, Brevo has the lowest price for our scenario and keeps data in the EU, with unlimited automation from Standard. It includes one user on Standard, and SSO and the Professional total need a conversation with sales. | From its public pages, Mailchimp is a broad, familiar email marketing tool with landing pages on every plan and seats with roles on Standard. Multi-step automations start on Standard, overage prices are shown only in the account, and data stays in the US. |
Evidence: beehiiv: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Klaviyo: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Brevo: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Mailchimp: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Score
- Pricing clarity
- 8.0 / 10, Excellent
- price for each list size published; can be bought online; month-to-month price published; no overage charges; custom domains are listed on Free in pricing.md and the page data, but marked as not included on Free in the comparison table; the free trial of Lite and Pro has no stated length
- Free plan
- 6.9 / 10, Good
- free plan: 2,500 contacts, no sending cap stated, no automations, trial (length not stated) of paid plans, no card
- Price for 5,000 contacts
- 3.7 / 10, Fair
- $109/mo on Lite: up to 5,000 subscribers, unlimited sends, 10 live automations
- Campaign and growth tools
- 7.5 / 10, Good
- A/B testing on the scenario plan; landing pages on the scenario plan; no vendor branding on a higher self-serve plan; SMS not listed; paid subscriptions on the scenario plan
- Compliance and data location
- 5.0 / 10, Fair
- own SOC 2 Type II, DPA in the terms, no EU storage option (AWS regions in the United States)
- Team access, API and export
- 6.2 / 10, Good
- 2 users included; SAML SSO enterprise or through sales only; user roles enterprise or through sales only; 2FA; API; contact export
Review
Review from public pages
Written from beehiiv's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
What the public pages show
We read beehiiv's pricing page with its comparison table, the tier data its slider uses and the pricing.md it publishes, the trust center, the Terms of Use and the Data Protection Addendum on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up, start a trial or call the API.
The pricing is easy to follow: a subscriber tier sets the price, sends are unlimited, and the slider data lists every tier. Up to 5,000 subscribers cost $109 a month on Lite ($95 billed yearly) and $199 on Pro ($169 yearly). Lite is the first plan with automations, so it is the plan for our scenario. The trust center says beehiiv achieved SOC 2 Type 2 on Jan 22, 2026, and that publication and subscriber data are stored in AWS regions in the United States.
Two details need a question. The plan list on the pricing pages includes custom domains on Free, while the comparison table marks them as not included on Free. And the pages say Lite and Pro include a free trial without a card, but not how long it lasts.
Strengths
- Monetization built in
From Lite: the ad network, paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, coupons, metered paywalls and a referral program.
vs Mailchimp: Kit charges 3.5% + 30¢ per paid-newsletter transaction; Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Brevo do not list paid newsletters.
- Unlimited sends
Every plan includes unlimited email sends, so frequent publishing does not raise the price.
Compared: Brevo stops sending at the monthly email limit of the chosen tier.
- Own SOC 2 Type 2
The trust center lists a SOC 2 Type II report, available on request, and continuous monitoring by Secureframe.
vs Kit: Kit's security page names only its hosting providers' certifications.
- Trial without a card
The free plan and the trial of Lite and Pro start without a credit card.
Things to know
- Branding removal starts on Pro
beehiiv branding stays on Free and Lite; removing it needs Pro ($199 a month at 5,000 subscribers).
- Team controls on Enterprise
SSO, audit logs and granular role permissions are on Enterprise only; Lite has 2 seats and Pro 10.
Workaround: 2FA is available on every plan.
- No SMS, data in the US
The pricing pages list no SMS channel, and data is stored in AWS regions in the United States.
Pricing reality
beehiiv bills by subscriber tier with unlimited sends. For our scenario, Lite costs $109 a month for up to 5,000 subscribers, before tax, or $95 a month billed yearly ($1,140 a year). Free stops at 2,500 subscribers. Pro, at $199 a month for the same list, adds branding removal, unlimited automations, the Send API and 10 seats. Paid subscriptions carry a 0% beehiiv take rate, but Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Some Lite and Pro features (ad network, recommendations, extra seats) are not available during the trial. Enterprise, with SSO and audit logs, is priced by sales.
Exit path
The comparison table lists data exports on every plan, and the API (without the Send API below Pro) is available on every plan. The DPA forms part of the terms.
Compared with
- Pick beehiiv when
- You want an ad network, paid subscriptions with no beehiiv fee, and a SOC 2 Type 2 report from the vendor.
- Pick Kit when
- You want a larger free plan (10,000 subscribers), SMS, and a lower price at 5,000 subscribers ($89 on Creator).
- Pick beehiiv when
- You publish a newsletter you want to monetize, with unlimited sends.
- Pick Mailchimp when
- You run marketing for a business and need 5 seats with roles, SMS and store integrations.
Choose it if
- You publish a newsletter and want to earn from ads and paid subscriptions.
- You want a website and landing pages in the same tool.
- You send often and want sending to stay unlimited.
Look elsewhere if
- You need SSO, audit logs or role permissions without an enterprise contract.
- You need SMS or EU data storage.
Bottom line
From its public pages, beehiiv is a newsletter business platform with unlimited sends and monetization from Lite, backed by a SOC 2 Type 2 report. Branding removal starts on Pro and team controls on Enterprise.
Plan limits at a glance
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Subscriber tier; unlimited sends |
| Free plan | 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, welcome email only |
| Reference scenario (5,000 contacts, monthly) | $109/mo on Lite (up to 5,000 subscribers) |
| Annual billing | Up to 20% off ($95/mo for the scenario on Lite) |
| Automation on the cheapest paid plan | Lite: 10 live custom automations |
| Users on the scenario plan | 2 seats on Lite; 10 on Pro |
| SMS | Not offered |
| Paid newsletters | From Lite, 0% take rate (Stripe fees apply) |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type 2 (since Jan 22, 2026); ISO 27001 not stated |
| Data location | United States (AWS) |
| SSO | Enterprise only |
| Contact export | Data exports on every plan |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for beehiiv yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for beehiiv yet.
beehiiv lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Lite (1,000 subscribers, monthly), costs $59/mo.
- beehiivFreeFree$0/mo
- Up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends
- Website with 1 custom page, landing pages, subscribe forms
- Welcome email, API access (no Send API)
- 1 seat, 3 segments
- beehiivLowest priceLite$59/mo1,000 subscribers; $49/mo billed yearly; $109/mo ($95 yearly) for up to 5,000 subscribers
- 10 live automations, A/B testing, publish to segments
- Ad network, paid subscriptions (0% take rate), referral program
- Custom domains, 5 custom pages, 3 webhooks
- 2 seats, 3 publications
- beehiivPro$109/mo1,000 subscribers; $95/mo billed yearly; $199/mo ($169 yearly) for up to 5,000 subscribers
- Remove beehiiv branding
- Unlimited automations with click triggers and A/B splits
- Send API, unlimited webhooks, dynamic content
- 10 seats, 10 publications, priority support
- beehiivEnterpriseContact sales
- SSO / SAML, audit logs, granular role permissions
- Dedicated IPs
- Custom subscriber limits
- Customer success manager
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: beehiiv.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.