The newsletter platform that nearly killed our list
In January 2026, we made a decision that cost us 1,200 subscribers in a single week. We migrated our 8,000-person newsletter from Kit (formerly ConvertKit) to beehiiv because we’d heard the growth tools were better. The migration itself went smoothly — we exported our list as a CSV from Kit, imported it into beehiiv, and double-checked that all subscribers were accounted for. Everything looked perfect.
Then Gmail happened.
Two days after the switch, our beehiiv sends started hitting the Promotions tab instead of the primary inbox. Open rates plummeted from 34% to 11%. Click-through rates dropped from 5.2% to 1.8%. We lost roughly 200 subscribers per day to unsubscribes and complaints — people who were suddenly seeing our emails in a folder they never check assumed we’d turned spammy. After a week, we’d bled 1,200 subscribers. Our ad revenue, which had been generating $380/month on Kit’s Sponsor Network, dropped to zero overnight.
The root cause was sender reputation. Kit had spent two years building our domain’s reputation with Gmail. beehiiv was starting from scratch — Gmail had no history of our domain sending through beehiiv’s infrastructure, so it defaulted to the cautious “Promotions” classification. We scrambled to authenticate our domain (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), warmed up our sending gradually, and submitted requests to Google’s Postmaster Tools. It took three full weeks to recover our inbox placement.
We recovered. But that failure taught us something critical: there is no “better” newsletter platform — only a better fit for what you’re trying to do. Switching platforms mid-flight is risky, and the migration overhead is real.
So we did what any rational team would do after a near-death experience: we set up both platforms again and ran them head-to-head for four months with completely fresh lists. Same content. Same sending schedule. Same lead magnets. The only variable was the platform.
Here’s what we found.
TL;DR — Our verdict after 4 months
We ran beehiiv and Kit side by side for 4 months with identical newsletters. beehiiv generated $2,412 net revenue vs Kit’s $138 — a 17x difference driven almost entirely by beehiiv’s built-in ad network. Kit is better for creators selling digital products.
Pick beehiiv ($49/mo flat) if you’re focused on growing and monetizing a newsletter through ads, sponsorships, and paid subscriptions. Ad revenue starts from day one, pricing stays flat to 100K subscribers, and transaction fees are 0%.
Pick Kit (free to $139/mo) if you’re a creator selling digital products, courses, or paid content with complex email automations. Kit’s automation builder, 100+ native integrations, and Kit Commerce are years ahead of beehiiv.
Our choice: We chose beehiiv for our main newsletter but keep Kit for a separate product launch funnel.
Our 4-month head-to-head experiment
We created two new newsletters from scratch for this test, both focused on SaaS tool recommendations — our bread and butter here at StackCrisp. Growing that audience required the same keyword research and SEO strategy we use for our blog — because organic search drives more newsletter signups than any other channel we’ve tested.
- Newsletter A (beehiiv): “StackCrisp Weekly,” sent every Thursday at 9:00 AM SGT, targeting SaaS-savvy professionals
- Newsletter B (Kit): “The Tool Drop,” sent every Thursday at 9:00 AM SGT, targeting freelancers and small teams
Both used identical lead magnets (a free SaaS comparison spreadsheet), similar signup forms on similar landing pages, and the same content quality. We put together dedicated landing pages for each — as we found when comparing Unbounce vs Leadpages, dedicated landing page tools convert 2-3x better than the built-in signup forms on any email platform. For creators also choosing where to host their main site, our Webflow vs WordPress comparison covers the two most popular options, and our Framer vs Webflow breakdown is worth reading if design speed is your priority.
After four months:
| Metric | beehiiv | Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribers | 4,217 | 3,891 |
| Avg open rate | 38.2% | 33.6% |
| Avg click rate | 5.1% | 4.3% |
| Ad revenue (total) | $1,840 | $0 |
| Paid subs revenue (total) | $720 | $380 |
| Digital product revenue (total) | $48 | $114 |
| Monthly cost (at list size) | $49 | $89 |
| Total platform cost (4 months) | $196 | $356 |
| Net revenue | $2,412 | $138 |
The numbers tell a clear story, but the “why” behind them is more interesting. Let’s dig in.
Where beehiiv genuinely wins
The ad network is real money from day one. This is beehiiv’s killer feature and no competitor comes close. Within two weeks of launching on beehiiv’s Scale plan ($49/month), we were approved for the beehiiv Ad Network. Brands pay to sponsor newsletter editions, and the programmatic ads run automatically in your emails — you don’t have to pitch advertisers, negotiate rates, or manage relationships. We earned $460 in our first full month, more than covering our entire platform cost. By month four, we were pulling in $580/month in ad revenue alone.
Kit has a “Sponsor Network” too, but the requirements are steep: 10,000+ subscribers, weekly sending cadence, and an exclusivity clause that prevents you from running other sponsorships simultaneously. Even if you qualify, Kit takes a 23.5% cut of earnings. beehiiv’s ad network is available at any list size on the Scale plan, and the revenue split is significantly more favorable.
Growth tools are built in, not bolted on. beehiiv was built by the team behind Morning Brew — the newsletter that grew to 3M+ subscribers. That DNA shows. The referral program is native: readers get a unique link, earn rewards for referrals, and you can customize the reward tiers. We set up a simple “refer 3 friends, get an exclusive tools list” program in 10 minutes. It generated 340 referrals over four months, which is 8% of our total subscriber growth.
Kit’s equivalent is the Creator Network, but it’s cross-promotion, not a referral program. Other Kit creators pay to be recommended in your emails, and Kit takes its 23.5% cut. It’s paid placement, not organic growth. We covered a similar dynamic in our look at automation platforms — when the platform takes a cut of your growth, the incentives don’t always align.
The pricing scales dramatically better. At 5,000 subscribers, beehiiv’s Scale plan costs $49/month flat. Kit’s Creator plan costs $89/month. At 10,000 subscribers, beehiiv is still $49 while Kit jumps to $129. At 100,000 subscribers, beehiiv costs $329/month vs Kit’s $679/month. That’s a $350/month difference at scale — $4,200 per year. For newsletter operators watching their margins, this isn’t a minor detail.
Zero transaction fees on paid subscriptions. beehiiv takes 0% of your paid subscription revenue. You keep everything minus Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Kit charges a 0.6% transaction fee on top of Stripe’s cut. On $500/month in subscription revenue, that’s an extra $30/month going to Kit. Over a year, that’s $360 — enough to cover beehiiv’s platform cost for seven months.
The analytics dashboard is genuinely useful. beehiiv’s analytics show open rates, click rates, subscriber growth trends, and engagement metrics with filtering by segment and time period. We used this data to discover that our Thursday sends outperformed Tuesday sends by 23%, and that subscribers who opened 3+ emails in their first month had a 4x higher lifetime click rate. This kind of insight helped us optimize our content strategy in ways Kit’s basic reporting couldn’t support.
Where Kit genuinely wins
The automation builder is in a different league. This is Kit’s biggest strength, and it’s not even close. Kit’s visual automation builder supports conditional branching, multiple entry points, click-based triggers, event-based triggers (purchase, date), delay steps, and native integrations with 100+ tools. We built a sophisticated 12-step welcome sequence on Kit that tagged subscribers based on which links they clicked, then routed them into different follow-up tracks. If someone clicked our project management tool comparison, they got tagged “pm-interested” and received follow-ups about productivity tools. If they clicked a CRM article instead, they entered the sales-tools track. The whole thing took 45 minutes to build.
beehiiv’s automations are basic by comparison. You can trigger emails based on subscribes, opens, clicks, and milestones, but there’s no visual builder with conditional branching or multiple entry points. If you need complex nurture sequences, Kit is significantly more capable.
The free plan is absurdly generous for subscriber count. Kit’s free Newsletter plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends, unlimited landing pages, and unlimited forms. That’s not a typo — ten thousand subscribers for free. The tradeoffs: only 1 basic automation, no email sequences, no A/B testing, and Kit branding on your emails. But if you’re just sending broadcasts and your list is under 10K, you can run Kit for free indefinitely.
beehiiv’s free Launch plan caps at 2,500 subscribers. Still generous for starting out, but 10K vs 2.5K is a massive difference if you’re bootstrapping and watching every dollar. We tested this kind of budget-conscious decision-making in our Brevo vs MailerLite comparison and found that generous free tiers can keep you on a platform much longer than you’d expect.
Digital product sales are polished and complete. Kit Commerce lets you sell ebooks, courses, presets, templates, and any digital product directly through the platform. We tested this by selling a $19 “SaaS Stack Template” — uploaded the PDF, set the price, and Kit handled checkout, delivery, subscriber tagging, and purchase-based automations automatically. It took 15 minutes. When someone bought the template, Kit automatically tagged them “buyer” and triggered a 3-email upsell sequence. That sequence generated $114 in additional revenue — all on autopilot.
beehiiv added digital products to the Scale plan in 2025, but the implementation is more basic. You can sell products, but the commerce experience lacks bundle pricing, discount codes, and purchase-triggered automations. It works, but it doesn’t feel like a complete store.
The creator ecosystem has a decade of depth. Kit (then ConvertKit) launched in 2013. beehiiv launched in 2021. That 8-year head start shows in the community: 25+ automation templates, 40+ email templates, a massive knowledge base, and an active creator community with answers to every edge case. We found solutions to complex problems in Kit’s community forums that would have required support tickets on beehiiv. If you’re new to email marketing, this ecosystem matters more than any single feature.
Native integrations save real time and money. Kit has 100+ native integrations: Shopify, WooCommerce, Thinkific, Calendly, Typeform, Slack, and dozens more. These work without middleware — no Zapier needed. beehiiv has essentially one native integration (Stripe). Everything else requires connecting through an automation tool. If your creator business uses multiple platforms — say, you sell courses through Thinkific (which we compared to Kajabi) and collect leads through Typeform — Kit plugs in directly while beehiiv requires a Zapier subscription on top of your newsletter platform cost.
Feature comparison table
| Feature | beehiiv | Kit (ConvertKit) |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan subscribers | 2,500 | 10,000 |
| Paid plan (1K subs) | $49/mo | $39/mo |
| Paid plan (5K subs) | $49/mo | $89/mo |
| Paid plan (10K subs) | $49/mo | $129/mo |
| Paid plan (100K subs) | $329/mo | $679/mo |
| Email sends | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Visual automation builder | Basic | Advanced |
| Automation templates | Limited | 25+ |
| Landing pages | Yes | Yes (30+ templates) |
| Email templates | 7 | 40+ |
| Custom CSS/HTML emails | Yes | Yes |
| A/B testing | Subject + content | Subject only (content on Pro) |
| Ad network | Built-in, all Scale+ users | Sponsor Network (10K+ subs required) |
| Referral program | Built-in on Scale | Pro plan only |
| Paid subscriptions | 0% fee | 0.6% fee |
| Digital products | Basic | Advanced (Kit Commerce) |
| Native integrations | ~1 (Stripe) | 100+ |
| Recommendation network | Built-in (Boosts) | Creator Network (23.5% cut) |
| Subscriber tagging | Basic | Advanced |
| Team members | 3 (Scale), Unlimited (Max) | 1 (Creator), Unlimited (Pro) |
| Deliverability reporting | Basic | Advanced (Pro plan) |
| Migration support | Paid plans | Creator and Pro plans |
Pricing comparison table
| Plan | beehiiv | Kit (ConvertKit) |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 2,500 subs, core features | 10,000 subs, 1 automation, Kit branding |
| Entry paid | Scale: $49/mo (up to 100K subs) | Creator: $39/mo for 1K subs |
| Mid paid | Max: $96/mo (up to 100K subs) | Creator: $89/mo for 5K subs |
| Premium | Max: $96/mo + all features | Pro: $139/mo for 5K subs |
| Annual discount | ~17% off | ~16% off |
| Transaction fees | 0% on paid subs | 0.6% + Stripe’s cut |
The pricing philosophies are fundamentally different. beehiiv charges a flat monthly fee ($49 for Scale) regardless of list size up to 100,000. Kit charges based on subscriber count, starting cheaper but scaling aggressively. The crossover point is around 1,000 subscribers — below that, Kit is cheaper. Above it, beehiiv wins decisively.
The real cost breakdown (our 4-month test)
Here’s what we actually spent and earned:
| beehiiv | Kit | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform cost (4 months) | $196 | $356 |
| Ad revenue | $1,840 | $0 |
| Paid subs revenue | $720 | $380 |
| Digital product revenue | $48 | $114 |
| Gross revenue | $2,608 | $494 |
| Net profit (revenue - cost) | $2,412 | $138 |
beehiiv made us $2,274 more over four months. That’s not a small number. But here’s the nuance: that advantage comes almost entirely from the ad network ($1,840). If you’re not planning to run ads in your newsletter, the gap narrows to roughly $400 — still in beehiiv’s favor due to lower platform costs and zero transaction fees, but not the blowout the headline suggests.
Who should pick what
Pick beehiiv if:
- You’re focused on growing a newsletter and monetizing through ads and sponsorships
- Your list is (or will be) over 1,000 subscribers
- You want referral programs and growth tools built in from day one
- You care about keeping costs predictable as you scale
- You don’t need complex automation sequences
- You want the platform to generate revenue, not just send emails
Pick Kit if:
- You’re a creator who sells digital products, courses, or paid content
- You need sophisticated email automations with conditional logic and branching
- Your list is under 1,000 subscribers and you want to stay free as long as possible
- You rely heavily on native integrations with other tools (Shopify, Thinkific, Calendly, etc.)
- You’re building a creator business, not just a newsletter
- Your email automations are central to your revenue strategy
The honest bottom line
For pure newsletter operators — people whose primary business model is publishing a newsletter and monetizing through ads, sponsorships, and paid subscriptions — beehiiv is the better platform in 2026. The ad network alone justifies the cost, and the growth tools (referrals, Boosts, recommendation network) create a compounding flywheel that Kit simply can’t match. Over our 4-month test, beehiiv generated 17x more net revenue.
For creators who view their newsletter as one piece of a larger business — selling courses, coaching, digital products, and using email as a nurture channel — Kit remains the stronger all-around tool. The automation builder, native integrations, and commerce features are years ahead of beehiiv. If your email sequences drive product sales, Kit’s sophistication pays for itself.
We chose beehiiv for our main newsletter. But we still keep Kit active for a separate product launch funnel — because sometimes the right answer is both.
If we had to pick just one? For most newsletter-first creators reading this, beehiiv. The economics are too compelling to ignore.
Is beehiiv really better than Kit (ConvertKit) for beginners?
For free use, Kit wins — 10,000 free subscribers vs beehiiv’s 2,500. For monetization, beehiiv wins — ad revenue, referrals, and 0% fees on its $49/mo Scale plan. Start free on Kit, switch to beehiiv once you cross 1,000 subscribers.
It depends on your definition of “beginner.” If you have under 1,000 subscribers and just want to send emails for free, Kit’s free plan is far more generous — 10,000 subscribers vs beehiiv’s 2,500. But if you’re serious about growing and monetizing from the start, beehiiv’s $49/month Scale plan gives you ad revenue potential, referral tools, and analytics that Kit reserves for its $139/month Pro plan. Our recommendation: start free on Kit while you find your voice, then switch to beehiiv once you cross 1,000 subscribers and are ready to monetize.
Can you migrate from Kit to beehiiv (or vice versa) without losing subscribers?
Yes, both platforms support migration, but beware of sender reputation. When we moved from Kit to beehiiv, Gmail lost trust in our domain and filtered us to Promotions for 3 weeks. We lost 1,200 subscribers. Always warm up your new sender reputation gradually.
Yes, both platforms support list migration. beehiiv offers migration assistance on paid plans, and Kit includes free migration on Creator and Pro plans. However — and we learned this the hard way — migrating between platforms risks your sender reputation. When we moved from Kit to beehiiv, Gmail lost trust in our sending domain and filtered us to Promotions for three weeks. We lost 1,200 subscribers and $380/month in ad revenue during that period. If you migrate, warm up your new sender reputation gradually. Import your list in batches. Don’t blast your full list on day one. And never migrate right before a planned send.
Does the beehiiv ad network actually pay well?
Yes. We earned $460/month on ~4,000 subscribers, growing to $580/month by month four. Expect $2-8 CPM depending on niche — SaaS and business newsletters command the highest rates. Ads appear as labeled sponsored sections, not spammy banners.
In our experience, yes. We earned an average $460/month on a ~4,000-subscriber list, and it grew to $580/month by month four as our open rates improved. The key factors are your open rate (advertisers pay based on estimated views) and your niche. SaaS and business niches command higher CPMs than lifestyle or hobby newsletters. Expect $2-8 CPM depending on audience quality. At our peak in month four, we hit $8.20 CPM. The ads are also tasteful — they appear as clearly labeled sponsored sections, not spammy banners.
Is Kit’s 0.6% transaction fee a big deal?
On small revenue, no — $1.20/mo on $200 in subscriptions. At scale, it adds up: $30/mo on $5,000 in revenue, $360/year. beehiiv charges 0%. For pure subscription revenue, the fee is frustrating; for creators mixing products, Kit Commerce may justify it.
On small revenue, no. On $200/month in paid subscriptions, that’s $1.20/month — barely noticeable. But if you’re running a serious newsletter business with $5,000/month in subscription revenue, Kit takes an extra $30/month compared to beehiiv’s 0%. Over a year, that’s $360 you’re paying Kit for the privilege of using their commerce tools. Whether that’s worth it depends entirely on how much you value Kit’s digital product features. For pure subscription revenue, the fee is frustrating. For creators selling a mix of subscriptions and one-time products, Kit Commerce probably justifies it.
Which platform has better email deliverability?
Both are comparable — beehiiv ~95% inbox placement vs Kit ~93% in our test. Your sending practices (authentication, list hygiene, content) matter far more than the platform. Kit has more mature deliverability reporting on its Pro plan for troubleshooting.
In our four-month test, beehiiv had a slight edge — we estimate roughly 95% inbox placement vs Kit’s 93%. But this difference is smaller than it sounds, and it’s heavily influenced by your sender reputation, list hygiene, authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and email content. Kit has more mature deliverability tools and detailed reporting on the Pro plan, which is valuable if you’re troubleshooting inbox issues. beehiiv has optimized deliverability as a core feature across all plans, including domain authentication guidance. The honest answer: both are good enough for most senders. Your sending practices matter far more than your platform choice.