Substack vs beehiiv for your first free newsletter

Quick answer: Start on Substack if your first issues are free and you do not want a subscriber ceiling to determine when you change plans. Substack says free publishing stays free regardless of list size. Start on beehiiv Free if a newsletter plus a beehiiv-hosted website meets your needs and you expect to stay within its 2,500-subscriber cap. A new beehiiv Free account cannot connect your own domain; that requires a paid plan. Both offer a welcome email, while a multi-step welcome sequence is a different, paid beehiiv requirement. Substack’s fee policy, beehiiv’s current plan view, and beehiiv’s domain guide set those boundaries as of October 4, 2026.

Suppose you have four written issues outlined, no paying readers, and a sign-up link you can share. You need an email edition and a public place where someone can read past issues. That is enough to choose a starting platform; it is not a reason to buy a paid tier for a hypothetical future audience. The details worth checking now are the free subscriber limit, the address your public archive uses, and the files you could take away if the platform stops fitting.

The free choice is a cap and a website decision

Substack documents a publication with posts that can be published to readers. Its fee policy says publishing free content costs nothing on the platform regardless of subscriber count. beehiiv’s current Free plan includes a newsletter and website, one publication, one team seat, unlimited newsletter sends, and up to 2,500 subscribed email addresses. Those are beehiiv’s stated allowances; “unlimited sends” does not remove its subscriber cap or guarantee inbox delivery.

The beehiiv allowance is a subscriber limit, not a monthly send allowance. Four issues to 2,000 subscribers could mean roughly 8,000 intended email deliveries while the list remains below Free’s ceiling. A single issue to 2,600 subscribers crosses that ceiling despite involving fewer deliveries. If you already have a consented list near 2,500, decide whether a paid beehiiv plan is acceptable before you import it. If the list begins at zero, the cap may never matter during your first four issues; Substack’s absence of a free-publishing cap becomes more valuable if you expect to grow without changing plans.

The website row needs a precise reading. beehiiv Free includes a site at a beehiiv address. Its current domain instructions put new custom-domain connections on paid plans. beehiiv’s plan-change help describes a narrower exception: a domain already connected to an account can continue after downgrade, though Free cannot add one. That exception helps an existing owner, not a new signup. Substack’s domain help lists an optional one-time $50 connection fee on top of domain registration. It also says the newsletter email still sends from a Substack address. A branded web URL does not make web and email identity identical.

If you want to own the visible web address from issue one, those terms may outweigh the subscriber limit. Ask whether you need an address on your own domain now, or simply a page readers can visit. The former has a specific charge or paid-plan gate here; the latter is available within the free publishing paths. Check what domain you will share before printing it in a profile, podcast notes or a physical handout. Replacing a public URL later takes more work than changing a draft title.

Compare the welcome path, not just the send button

A newsletter issue and an automatic welcome message solve different problems. The first goes to the audience when you publish. The second answers the question a new subscriber has immediately after signing up: what did I join, and where should I start? Substack’s welcome-email guidance describes separate messages for free, paid, imported and founding subscribers. It also notes a condition in profile mode: the welcome email starts after at least two posts; its Custom theme removes that condition. If you depend on an immediate welcome after issue one, check your publication mode and settings rather than assuming every signup receives the same message.

beehiiv distinguishes a single welcome email from a welcome automation with multiple steps. Free has the former. If you intend a staged introduction—an orientation on signup day, a resource two days later, and a question a week later—that is a paid automation requirement on beehiiv, even if your regular newsletter has few subscribers. A temporary paid-plan trial is not the enduring Free entitlement. Substack’s cited help establishes customizable welcome emails; it does not establish a comparable multi-step drip feature, so do not make that sequence the reason to choose Substack without checking the capability you need.

This is one place to inspect each service directly before asking anyone to subscribe. Publish a short sample issue, sign up with an address you control, and compare the received issue, welcome email, public post and signup destination. These are checks you can perform on your own account, not measured performance claims. They reveal whether the sender identity, archive URL and first-reader path match what you plan to share. The text-first newsletter guide covers topic, permission-based signup promise and cadence; those editorial decisions apply whichever platform you choose.

If your real task is sending campaigns to a business list rather than publishing a newsletter archive, the email software guide hub covers that different choice.

Paid readers change the math—and the work

Neither service requires a paid offer to publish your first free issues. If readers later ask for one, decide what the payment provides before comparing platform fees. Substack’s paid-publication instructions make paid subscriptions an optional Stripe-connected setup. Its fee page states a 10% Substack platform fee on subscription revenue, with Stripe processing charged separately.

For example, 100 readers paying $5 in one month produce $500 gross. Ten percent is $50 in Substack platform fees, before Stripe processing, taxes, refunds or other costs. At $0 of paid revenue, that percentage produces $0 in platform fees. This makes the size of a real paid audience relevant; it does not establish when another service would cost less overall.

beehiiv’s October plan announcement says Lite and Pro include paid subscriptions and that beehiiv takes 0% of subscription revenue as its platform share. Its paid-subscription setup guide requires a paid plan and a connected Stripe account. The recurring beehiiv subscription, its audience tier, Stripe processing and applicable tax still matter. Compare a current paid-plan quote for your subscriber count with the same month’s projected Substack fee and payment costs; use the same currency and billing period. A 0% platform share alone is not a zero-cost paid publication.

Plan names are especially easy to misread during this transition. beehiiv says Launch became Free, Scale became Lite, and Max became Pro for new customers on October 1, 2026. Existing accounts transition at their first renewal on or after November 1. The bare pricing URL served an older Launch/Scale/Max view during the October 4 research, while a current pricing view showed Free/Lite/Pro. A new publisher should use the new-account terms; an existing customer should read the terms shown for their renewal. Neither path justifies a fixed beehiiv paid price here without a dated quote for the actual subscriber tier and billing term.

Check the exit files while the publication is small

The easier time to examine an export is before paid readers and dozens of public links make a move consequential. Substack’s subscriber export guide describes a CSV with all or selected visible columns and says subscriber names are not currently exportable. Its post export is a publication ZIP containing posts and statistics. beehiiv’s export guide describes Quick and Full subscriber CSV options and an all-post export. The existence of these files is useful, but their formats and fields differ.

For a four-issue publication, make a small exit inventory: the addresses of subscribers who actually agreed to receive email and their active status; the four post files; the URL of each public issue; the domain, if you connected one; and any paid obligations. Match that inventory to the export options you can see. A subscriber CSV is not an archive of your pages. A ZIP of posts does not by itself preserve URL paths, site design or links from other websites. If the same URL structure matters to you, plan the move and redirects separately before changing a domain or publishing links you cannot revise.

Paid subscribers add a separate handoff. beehiiv documents a Stripe-based paid-subscriber import on a paid plan and warns that prior billing must be canceled separately. Uploading a free subscriber list does not transfer a charge or settle the next renewal. If paid publishing is likely soon, inspect the payment account and migration path before turning it on; if it remains speculative, avoid paying today merely to prepare for a transfer that may never happen.

Choose with the first actual constraint. Substack’s free publication has no subscriber ceiling and a documented percentage fee if you later charge readers. beehiiv Free offers a newsletter and hosted site within 2,500 subscribers, with a single welcome email, while your own domain, multi-step automation and paid subscriptions lead to a paid plan. Keep a copy of your first issue and the address you plan to share, then use the free workflow that fits those requirements.