Beehiiv vs ConvertKit: Which Newsletter Platform Should You Pick in 2026?

Choosing the right newsletter platform is one of those decisions that seems small but compounds over time. Pick wrong, and you'll spend months migrating subscribers, rebuilding automations, and losing momentum. Pick right, and you've got a growth engine that works while you sleep.

Two platforms dominate the conversation in 2026: Beehiiv and ConvertKit (now officially rebranded to Kit). Both are excellent. Both have passionate fans. But they serve very different creators.

We've spent weeks testing both platforms side by side, and here's the honest breakdown.

The Short Version

Beehiiv is the better choice if you want to build a media business around your newsletter. It has native ad monetization, a built-in referral program, and a generous free tier that punches way above its weight.

ConvertKit (Kit) is the better choice if you're a creator who sells products, courses, or services and needs powerful email automation to drive revenue. It treats your newsletter as one piece of a larger creator business.

Now let's get into the details.

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is where these two platforms diverge sharply. Let's lay it out.

Our take: Beehiiv's free tier is more generous in features, but ConvertKit's free tier supports more subscribers (10,000 vs 2,500). If you're just starting out with zero audience, Beehiiv's free plan gives you more tools to grow. If you already have a list and want to move it somewhere free, ConvertKit's higher subscriber cap wins.

At the paid level, both land around $50/month for their full-featured plans, so the deciding factor isn't price. It's what you get for that price.

Free Tier Face-Off

The free tier matters more than most people think. It's where you'll spend your first 6 to 12 months, and limitations at this stage can genuinely stunt your growth.

Beehiiv's free tier includes:

• Up to 2,500 subscribers
• Unlimited sends
• Custom domain support
• Built-in website and blog
• Basic analytics
• API access
• Community features

ConvertKit's free tier includes:

• Up to 10,000 subscribers
• Unlimited sends
• Landing pages and forms
• Basic email sequences
• Subscriber tagging
• Selling digital products

Beehiiv gives you the tools to look professional from day one (custom domain, website). ConvertKit gives you room to grow your list without hitting a paywall. Different philosophies, both valid.

Winner: Tie. It depends on whether you value features (Beehiiv) or subscriber headroom (ConvertKit).

Monetization: Where Beehiiv Pulls Ahead

This is the category where Beehiiv truly separates itself. If making money directly from your newsletter is a priority, Beehiiv is in a league of its own.

Beehiiv Monetization

• Beehiiv Ad Network: Connect with advertisers automatically. Beehiiv matches you with brands based on your niche and audience size. No cold outreach, no media kits. You publish, they pay.
• Paid subscriptions: Gate premium content behind a paywall. Beehiiv handles billing, access control, and subscriber management.
• Boosts: Get paid to recommend other newsletters. This is genuinely unique. Other newsletter operators pay you a bounty for each subscriber you refer to them. Some creators earn $2 to $5 per referral.
• Sponsorship marketplace: A built-in system for managing direct sponsorship deals.

ConvertKit Monetization

• Paid subscriptions: Offer paid newsletter tiers with Stripe integration.
• Digital products: Sell ebooks, courses, templates, and downloads directly through ConvertKit.
• Tip jars: Accept one-time payments from supporters.
• Creator Network: A recommendation system similar to Beehiiv Boosts, though less mature.

Winner: Beehiiv. It's not even close for newsletter-specific monetization. The ad network and Boost system alone can generate meaningful revenue even with a modest audience. ConvertKit's strength is selling your own products, which is powerful but requires you to create and market those products yourself.

Design and Editor Experience

Both platforms have modern, clean editors. But the experience of actually writing and designing your emails differs.

Beehiiv's Editor

Beehiiv's editor is purpose-built for newsletters. It feels like writing a blog post. You get drag-and-drop blocks, inline images, embedded polls, and clean typography out of the box. The web hosting component means your emails double as web pages automatically, which is great for SEO.

The template library is solid but not massive. Most Beehiiv newsletters end up looking similar because the editor guides you toward a specific aesthetic. That's fine if you like that aesthetic (clean, minimal, text-forward). Less fine if you want something visually distinctive.

ConvertKit's Editor

ConvertKit recently overhauled its editor, and the improvement is significant. The new visual builder supports more complex layouts, custom HTML blocks, and better image handling. It's more flexible than Beehiiv's editor but also more complex.

ConvertKit also shines with its landing page builder. You can create beautiful opt-in pages, product pages, and link-in-bio pages without touching code. Beehiiv has a website builder, but ConvertKit's landing pages are more polished.

Winner: ConvertKit by a hair. More flexibility, better landing pages, and the recent editor upgrades close the gap significantly.

Analytics and Reporting

Data drives growth. Here's how each platform helps you understand your audience.

Beehiiv Analytics

Beehiiv's analytics are genuinely impressive, especially for a newsletter platform:

• Open rates, click rates, and engagement scores
• 3D analytics showing engagement patterns over time
• Subscriber growth tracking with source attribution
• Revenue analytics (ads, paid subs, boosts)
• UTM parameter support
• Audience demographics and geographic data

The dashboard is clean, visual, and actionable. You can quickly see which posts performed best, where your growth is coming from, and how much money you're making.

ConvertKit Analytics

ConvertKit's analytics are... functional. They cover the basics:

• Open and click rates
• Subscriber growth
• Revenue from products and subscriptions
• Automation performance
• Tag and segment analytics

But the presentation is less polished than Beehiiv's, and you miss features like engagement scoring and detailed geographic data. ConvertKit treats analytics as a supporting feature rather than a centerpiece.

Winner: Beehiiv. Significantly better analytics that actually help you make decisions. ConvertKit's reporting feels like an afterthought by comparison.

Automation and Sequences

This is ConvertKit's home turf. The platform was literally built around the concept of email automations.

ConvertKit Automations

ConvertKit's visual automation builder is best-in-class:

• Visual workflow builder: Drag-and-drop automation flows with branching logic, delays, conditions, and actions.
• Sequences: Multi-email drip campaigns with customizable timing and conditions.
• Tagging system: Sophisticated subscriber segmentation based on behavior, purchases, form submissions, and custom events.
• Rules engine: If-this-then-that style rules for simple automations.
• Integration triggers: Start automations based on events in connected tools (Zapier, webhooks, direct integrations).

You can build genuinely complex customer journeys: someone downloads a lead magnet, gets tagged, enters a nurture sequence, clicks a link, gets retagged, enters a sales sequence, purchases, exits the sequence, and enters an onboarding flow. All automated. All visual.

Beehiiv Automations

Beehiiv has automations, but they're simpler:

• Basic welcome sequences
• Drip campaigns
• Segment-based sending
• Simple conditional logic

They work fine for newsletter-focused workflows (welcome new subscribers, re-engage inactive readers). But if you need multi-step, branching automations that respond to complex subscriber behavior, Beehiiv will leave you wanting more.

Winner: ConvertKit. Hands down. If automations matter to your business, ConvertKit is the obvious choice. It's not even a debate.

Integrations and API

Modern creators use multiple tools. How well does each platform play with others?

Beehiiv Integrations

• Zapier and Make (Integromat) support
• REST API (well-documented)
• WordPress plugin
• Stripe (for paid subscriptions)
• Google Analytics
• Facebook Pixel / Meta
• Webhooks
• Limited native integrations

ConvertKit Integrations

• 90+ native integrations
• Zapier and Make support
• REST API (comprehensive)
• Direct integrations with: Teachable, Gumroad, Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow, Patreon, and dozens more
• Webhooks
• iOS app

Winner: ConvertKit. The breadth of native integrations is unmatched. If you use tools like Teachable, Shopify, or Gumroad, ConvertKit connects directly without needing Zapier as middleware.

Growth Tools

Growing your subscriber list is the whole game. Both platforms offer tools to help, but they take different approaches.

Beehiiv Growth Tools

• Referral program: Built-in viral referral system where subscribers earn rewards for referring friends. Think Morning Brew's legendary referral program, but available to everyone.
• Boosts (receiving end): Pay other newsletter creators to recommend you. Instant subscriber acquisition with a clear cost per subscriber.
• Recommendations widget: Suggest other newsletters to your subscribers (and get recommended back).
• Magic links: Frictionless login for returning readers.
• SEO-optimized web hosting: Every post is a web page that can rank in Google.

ConvertKit Growth Tools

• Landing pages: High-converting opt-in pages with A/B testing.
• Forms and pop-ups: Embeddable opt-in forms for your existing website.
• Creator Network: Recommend other creators and get recommended.
• Free and paid products as lead magnets: Use digital downloads to capture emails.
• Link pages: A link-in-bio tool for social media.

Winner: Beehiiv. The referral program and Boost network are genuine competitive advantages. ConvertKit's tools are solid but conventional. Beehiiv's approach to growth feels more innovative and newsletter-native.

Deliverability

None of this matters if your emails land in spam. Both platforms have strong deliverability reputations, but there are nuances.

Beehiiv and ConvertKit both maintain high deliverability rates (95%+ inbox placement). Both support custom authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Both actively manage their sending infrastructure to protect sender reputation.

In our testing, deliverability was comparable. Neither platform gave us issues with Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail. This is effectively a tie, and both platforms take deliverability seriously enough that it shouldn't be a deciding factor.

Winner: Tie.

The Verdict: Who Should Pick What

Here's our opinionated recommendation based on creator type.

Pick Beehiiv If You Are:

• A newsletter-first creator. Your newsletter IS the product. You want to monetize through ads, paid subscriptions, and sponsorships.
• A media company builder. You're building something like Morning Brew, The Hustle, or Milk Road. Beehiiv was literally built for this use case.
• Growth-obsessed. The referral program and Boost network give you growth levers that ConvertKit simply doesn't have.
• Starting from scratch on a budget. Beehiiv's free tier gives you custom domains and a real website from day one.

Try Beehiiv free

Pick ConvertKit If You Are:

• A creator who sells products. You have courses, ebooks, coaching, templates, or physical products. ConvertKit's automation engine will drive more sales.
• Running a complex business. You need sophisticated tagging, segmentation, and multi-step automations to manage different customer segments.
• Already embedded in the creator economy. You use Teachable, Gumroad, Shopify, or other creator tools that integrate natively with ConvertKit.
• A blogger or content creator with an existing website. ConvertKit's forms, landing pages, and WordPress integration make it the better add-on to an established web presence.

Try ConvertKit free

The Overlap

If you're somewhere in the middle, here's the tiebreaker question: Is your newsletter the business, or does your newsletter support the business?

If the newsletter IS the business, go with Beehiiv. If the newsletter supports a broader creator business (courses, products, services), go with ConvertKit.

Final Score

Both platforms are excellent. You genuinely can't go wrong with either one. But "can't go wrong" isn't the same as "perfect fit," and understanding the differences will save you a migration headache down the road.

Pick the one that matches how you work today and where you want to be in a year. Then stop second-guessing and start writing.