beehiiv Interactive Demo
Explore a demo of beehiiv, a newsletter platform built for creators who want to grow, monetize, and manage their audience without stitching together separate tools.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is a newsletter platform founded in 2021 by a team that previously built Morning Brew's audience infrastructure. That origin matters: the product is built around the practical mechanics of newsletter growth, not just email delivery. It serves independent creators, media companies, and brands that want direct relationships with their readers.
The platform handles the full subscriber lifecycle. Writers get a publication home page, a web-based editor, subscriber management, segmentation, and analytics in one place. Under the hood, beehiiv handles deliverability, unsubscribe processing, and list hygiene — so creators spend less time on infrastructure and more time on writing.
Monetization is built in from the start. beehiiv offers paid subscriptions processed through Stripe, an Ad Network where sponsors bid to place ads in your newsletter, and Boosts, which lets you earn money by recommending other beehiiv newsletters to your subscribers. Referral programs are also native to the platform, giving readers shareable links that track growth attribution.
How to get started with beehiiv
- 1
Create your publication
Sign up at beehiiv.com and name your publication. You'll get a beehiiv-hosted URL immediately and can connect a custom domain once you're on a paid plan. The setup takes a few minutes.
- 2
Customize your publication page
Add a logo, description, and header image to your publication home page. This is what potential subscribers see before they sign up, so it's worth treating it like a landing page.
- 3
Import or grow your subscriber list
Upload an existing list via CSV or start fresh with beehiiv's built-in subscribe forms and referral program. The referral widget gives each subscriber a unique link to share, and you can set rewards for hitting referral milestones.
- 4
Write and send your first issue
Use beehiiv's block-based editor to write your first issue. You can preview the email before sending, schedule it for a specific time, or send it immediately. After it goes out, the analytics dashboard shows opens, clicks, and subscriber growth from that issue.
- 5
Set up a monetization method
Connect Stripe to enable paid subscriptions, apply to the Ad Network once you're eligible, or turn on Boosts to start earning from subscriber recommendations. These can be activated independently or in combination.
Who is beehiiv most useful for?
Independent creators and solo writers who want to own their audience and generate revenue without relying on a platform's ad revenue share. beehiiv's free plan supports up to 2,500 subscribers, making it a practical starting point before a paid audience exists. Scale and Max plans unlock premium features like custom domains, advanced analytics, and the Ad Network once traction is established.
Media companies and editorial teams publishing multiple newsletters across different topics or audiences. If you're producing consistent content and want to show potential sponsors or paid subscribers what the reading experience looks like, you can use Supademo to build an interactive walkthrough of your beehiiv publication before someone subscribes.
B2B brands using newsletters as a content marketing channel. beehiiv's segmentation lets you filter by subscriber activity, acquisition source, and custom fields, so you're not sending the same content to every reader. Teams that integrate beehiiv into a broader content strategy often use it alongside landing page tools and CRMs to close the loop between newsletter engagement and pipeline.
beehiiv competes with several newsletter and email platforms, each with a different take on creator monetization and audience building.
Built more for marketing teams than independent publishers. Stronger for transactional and drip email campaigns, but lacks native newsletter monetization features like beehiiv's Ad Network and Boosts.
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Has a network effect that can surface your newsletter to new readers organically. Takes a revenue cut from paid subscriptions instead of charging a monthly fee, which hurts at higher revenue levels.
Formerly ConvertKit, now Kit. Strong automation and subscriber tagging for creators who sell products or run courses alongside a newsletter. More complex to configure than beehiiv for pure newsletter use.
Self-hostable and highly customizable for technical publishers. Native membership and subscription tools, but requires more setup and ongoing maintenance than a managed platform like beehiiv.
FAQs on beehiiv
Commonly asked questions about beehiiv. Have more? Reach out and our team will be happy to help.
Is beehiiv free to use?
beehiiv's free plan supports up to 2,500 subscribers with no monthly fee, and it includes the core editor, publication page, and basic analytics. Scale ($39/mo) and Max ($99/mo) plans unlock the Ad Network, Boosts, custom automations, and premium analytics.
How does beehiiv's Ad Network work?
beehiiv's Ad Network connects publishers with sponsors who bid for placements across participating newsletters. Creators apply to join once their publication meets certain criteria. Ads appear as designated placements in your issues, and beehiiv handles billing and payout, so you don't need to negotiate sponsorships independently.
What is the beehiiv Boosts program?
beehiiv Boosts lets you earn money by recommending other newsletters to your subscribers, and it lets you pay to be recommended by other publishers to their audiences. When a subscriber signs up through a Boost recommendation and meets the engagement threshold, the payment triggers automatically. It's a network-based growth channel built natively into the platform.
Can I migrate from Substack or Mailchimp to beehiiv?
beehiiv supports subscriber imports via CSV and has migration guides for coming from Mailchimp, Substack, and similar platforms. You can bring your subscriber list, including custom fields and tags, though historical send data typically doesn't transfer.
Does beehiiv handle paid subscriptions?
beehiiv's paid subscription feature runs through Stripe and lets you gate content by tier. You can offer a free tier and one or more paid tiers with different content access, and beehiiv handles the subscription management, billing, and access controls without requiring a separate membership tool.
How does beehiiv compare to Substack?
beehiiv gives creators more control over monetization structure, analytics depth, and audience growth tools. Substack has a built-in discovery network that can surface new subscribers organically, but takes a percentage of revenue. beehiiv charges a flat monthly fee instead and doesn't take a cut of paid subscriptions, which makes it more cost-effective at scale.