Best Newsletter Platform (2026): beehiiv vs Substack vs Kit vs Ghost vs MailerLite

Best overall

beehiiv is by far the newest platform on this list. It launched in 2021, a decade after Kit and Ghost, and it was started by people who came out of Morning Brew, one of the biggest newsletters in the world, which sold for around $75 million. So it was built by a team that had already grown a massive newsletter and then made the tool they wished they’d had. You can feel that when you use it.

Pick beehiiv if the newsletter itself is the business: you want to grow a list, and you want that list to make you money.

It helps you get subscribers. This is what separates it from almost everything else here. Most platforms assume you bring your own traffic: they send your email, and that’s where their job ends. beehiiv has a recommendation network where other newsletters recommend yours and you recommend theirs back, paid recommendations (called Boosts until October 2026) where you pay other newsletters to send subscribers your way, and a built-in referral program that rewards your readers for bringing people in.

It helps you make money, without taking a cut. You get paid subscriptions, an ad network that pays you when your subscribers click ads, digital products, and a sponsorship storefront on the Pro plan. beehiiv takes 0% of any of it; you only pay Stripe’s normal processing fee on paid subscriptions.

It builds you a real website. Every issue is published as a web post on your own domain, with an SEO title and description generated for you. Your archive works like a blog and shows up in Google, which is one of the best free ways to get subscribers there is.

Podcasts and communities. Nothing else here has either, and both are now included on every plan, even the free one. You can run a paid community inside the platform, on the same subscription your readers already pay for (charging for it needs the Lite plan). I think communities are one of the best things you can add to a newsletter: they make your subscription more valuable, and it’s fun to actually get to know your audience.

Price: free up to 2,500 subscribers, including the website, podcast and community, which is generous. But paid subscriptions, the ad network, paid recommendations, the referral program and automations start on the Lite plan: $59 per month at 1,000 subscribers and $139 at 10,000, billed monthly ($49 at 1,000 if you pay yearly). Pro, from $109 per month, adds the sponsorship storefront and removes beehiiv branding. beehiiv replaced its old Scale and Max plans with Lite and Pro on October 1, 2026, so the prices in the video are the old ones. My link gets you 20% off your first 3 months, or use the code SCOPE at checkout for the same discount.

For writers

You’ve almost certainly heard of Substack, and on Google Trends it’s far bigger than beehiiv. There’s a reason for that, and it’s the most important thing to understand about this platform: Substack isn’t only searched by writers, it’s searched by readers too.

That’s because Substack is really two things stacked on top of each other. There’s the email side, which works like any other newsletter platform. And there’s substack.com itself, which is basically a social network, with a feed, recommendations, leaderboards and a lot of people in the app just reading.

Pick Substack if you’re a writer first. You want people to read and find your work, and you have no real interest in growth tactics, funnels, automations or selling products or a community. The writing experience is about as simple as it gets: open the editor, write, hit publish. The design is mostly locked, so you don’t decide how your newsletter looks.

The catch is the revenue cut. Substack takes 10% of your paid subscription revenue, plus Stripe fees of around 2.9% on top. At $100 a month that’s just $10. But with 500 subscribers paying $10 a month, you’re paying Substack $500 every month. Once you have a paid tier, Substack becomes by far the most expensive platform on this list. I wouldn’t pick it if you’re serious about making money from paid subscriptions, but if writing is your passion and you don’t care much about the business side, it’s a really good choice.

Price: free, with no monthly fee. With paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of your revenue, plus Stripe’s fees.

For creators with products

You might know Kit as ConvertKit; it rebranded a while back. The fastest way to understand Kit is to look at who uses it: people like James Clear, Ali Abdaal and even Matthew McConaughey. They already have a big audience somewhere, they’re often selling something to it, and the newsletter is how they do that.

Pick Kit if that’s your situation: you have a YouTube channel, an Instagram following or a podcast, with courses, coaching or digital products behind it. Automations are the main reason to choose Kit.

Websites are its weakest point. You get a creator profile where your posts are published, plus landing pages and forms, but it’s a profile page, not a website you control. If you plan to rank content in Google, this isn’t the tool for that.

Watch the price as you grow. Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers, the most generous free plan here. But automations are limited on the free plan, so once you’re selling something you’ll want the Creator plan, and Kit gets expensive quickly as your list grows (more on that below). I wouldn’t pick Kit if the newsletter itself is the thing you’re building: without a separate product, you’re paying for automation depth you don’t need.

Price: free up to 10,000 subscribers. Creator is $39 per month at 1,000 subscribers and $139 at 10,000, billed monthly.

For design-focused publications

Ghost is open source and run by a nonprofit. There’s no venture capital behind it and nobody pushing the platform in a direction that works against publishers, which for some people is the whole reason to pick it.

Pick Ghost if you’re a publication first and email second. Ghost is a proper CMS and its publishing side is really good. You get more control over how your site looks than on any other platform here, including beehiiv: buy a theme, have a developer customize it, and never think about it again. If you care about design, Ghost is the best one.

Self-hosting isn’t as free as it sounds. It’s the only platform here you can host yourself for free, but you still need a paid email provider to send your newsletters, and Ghost only officially supports Mailgun for that. You also handle your own updates, backups and deliverability. So it’s free if you’re technical and enjoy that; otherwise you pay Ghost’s normal price like everyone else.

Two things people find out after committing.

• Automations are very basic. For years Ghost had no automations at all, not even a built-in welcome email. In June 2026 it added welcome email sequences for new free and paid members, still in beta. That covers the basics, but anything beyond a welcome flow still means building it in Zapier or n8n, so paying for and maintaining a second tool.
• Double opt-in is always on. Everyone who subscribes has to open a confirmation email and click it before they’re on your list, and a decent chunk of people never do. On Ghost you can’t turn that off. On beehiiv it’s a toggle that’s off by default, so you can switch it on only when you want it, for example to filter out fake signups. For a platform this customizable, forcing a setting not everyone wants feels limiting.

For me those two cons make Ghost not worth it, and I wouldn’t pick it if growing your list is the main goal. Deciding between Ghost and beehiiv specifically? I put them side by side in my beehiiv vs Ghost comparison.

Price: Starter is $18 per month billed monthly, or $15 billed yearly, but it only goes up to 1,000 members. For paid subscriptions, a custom theme or more members you need Publisher: $35 per month at 1,000 members and $105 at 10,000, billed monthly ($29 and $88 billed yearly).

When email supports your business

MailerLite is a bit different from the other four, because it didn’t start as a newsletter tool at all. It’s been an email marketing platform since 2010, and the newsletter and website features came later. It’s the closest thing to Mailchimp, which also started as email marketing and now does newsletters too. Personally, I prefer MailerLite over Mailchimp.

Pick MailerLite if email supports your business rather than being the business: a SaaS product, an online store or a service business, where email handles onboarding, retention and sales instead of being the thing people signed up for. You get strong automations, flexible segmentation, forms, landing pages, and a website builder with a real blog and proper SEO settings, so you can rank your content. Custom domains are only on the paid plans.

The free plan used to be a lot better. It’s now capped at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails per month, so treat it as a trial rather than something to use long term. Torn between MailerLite and beehiiv? See my beehiiv vs MailerLite comparison.

Price: free up to 250 subscribers. The Comfort plan is $19 per month at 1,000 subscribers and $89 at 10,000, billed monthly, after a price increase in June 2026.