Creator email: sell vs publish
Kit vs Beehiiv: Email for Creators Who Sell vs Creators Who Publish
Public pricing only. Kit vs Beehiiv by job — selling a product vs the newsletter as the product. Not a hands-on review.
Kit · Beehiiv
Updated 14 August 2026. This page uses public pricing and feature lists only. We have not run both tools as paying customers for this draft. Vendor “open rate” or “top creator earnings” claims are omitted.
Disclosure: Some links to Kit may be affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission. It does not change the price you pay. Beehiiv links in this draft go to official pages.
ConvertKit rebranded to Kit. Same product, new name. If a 2023 guide still says ConvertKit, it is talking about this tool.
The one-line difference
Kit is built for creators who use email to sell something they already made: a course, a digital download, a coaching subscription, a paid newsletter on top of a funnel.
Beehiiv is built for people whose newsletter is the product: a site, a recommendation network, an ad network, and paid subscriptions with a published 0% platform take rate.
Both send email. They are aimed at different jobs. Picking “the winner” without naming the job is how these comparisons go wrong.
Snapshot (official list prices, 14 August 2026)
Figures below are for 1,000 subscribers unless noted. Both vendors scale price with list size. Confirm the live slider before you buy.
| Kit | Beehiiv | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Newsletter: $0, up to 10,000 subscribers | Launch: $0, up to 2,500 subscribers |
| Free-plan catch | One Kit-managed Recommendation slot; Paid Recommendation earnings from that slot go to Kit | No automations, no ad network, no paid subscriptions, no digital products on Launch |
| First paid tier (1,000 subs) | Creator $39/mo monthly, or $33/mo ($390/year) on annual | Scale $49/mo monthly, or $43/mo ($517/year) on annual |
| Next paid tier (1,000 subs) | Creator Pro $79/mo monthly, or $66/mo ($790/year) | Max $109/mo monthly, or $96/mo ($1,151/year) |
| Trial | 14 days, no card (paid plans) | Sign up free (Launch). Some Scale features are marked “not in trial” |
| Email sends | Unlimited broadcasts on all listed plans | Unlimited on all listed plans |
| Automations on free | 1 basic visual automation and 1 email sequence | None (automations start on Scale) |
| Visual / behavior funnels | Unlimited visual automations on Creator+ | Automations on Scale; click-triggered automations on Max |
| Sell digital products | Listed on Newsletter (free) and all paid plans | Scale+ |
| Paid newsletter / subscriptions | Listed on all plans, including free | Scale+ |
| Platform take on your paid subs | Checkout fee listed as 3.5% + 30¢ (pricing page; “inclusive of card processing”) | 0% platform take; Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 |
| Ad / sponsor network | Newsletter sponsorships and Paid Recommendations on paid plans (Paid Rec fee 23.5% on Creator/Pro) | Ad Network and programmatic ads on Scale+ (not in all regions; not in trial) |
| Built-in website | Newsletter site / landing pages (unlimited on all plans) | Full newsletter site, custom domain, link-in-bio on Launch |
| Podcast hosting | Not a core pricing-page product (apps exist) | Launch: 1 episode/mo, 1 show. Scale: 4/mo. Max: unlimited episodes, 3 shows |
| Team seats (1,000-sub view) | Newsletter: 1. Creator: 2. Pro: unlimited | Launch: 1. Scale: up to 3. Max: unlimited |
| Remove platform branding | Creator+ | Max+ |
Sources: kit.com/pricing, Kit Newsletter plan, Creator vs Pro, beehiiv.com/pricing.
Beehiiv Scale at other published buckets (monthly): 2,500 subs $69, 5,000 $89, 10,000 $109. Kit’s paid tiers also rise with list size; the public page is a slider, so we do not invent a 10,000-sub Kit price here. Check kit.com/pricing with your count.
Kit: email as the storefront
Kit calls itself an email-first operating system for creators. The public feature list matches that: tags, visual automations, sequences, landing pages, and a checkout for digital products, subscriptions, and paid newsletters.
Newsletter (free) is the unusual part. Official help: up to 10,000 active unique subscribers, unlimited forms and landing pages, unlimited sends, digital products and subscriptions, a newsletter site, and one basic visual automation with one sequence. The trade: one Recommendation slot is Kit-managed, and Paid Recommendation earnings from that slot go to Kit. Support on free is 24/7, with a published 24–72 hour window for free requests.
Creator ($39/mo at 1,000 subs) unlocks unlimited visual automations and sequences, RSS campaigns, apps, Kit MCP, subject-line A/B (2 variants), SMS marketing (listed on the pricing page), and removal of Kit branding. Two users.
Creator Pro ($79/mo at 1,000 subs) is the reporting and team tier: content A/B tests, unlimited users, collaborative editing, deliverability reporting, engagement scoring, Subscriber Signals, Insights, Facebook custom audiences, SparkLoop referral, edit-links-after-send.
Fees when you sell through Kit: the pricing table lists 3.5% + 30¢ on digital products and subscriptions, “inclusive of credit card processing,” and a line that Kit’s own cut of those fees is 0.6%. Paid Recommendations on Creator/Pro list a 23.5% Kit fee. Do not compare that 23.5% to Beehiiv’s 0% subscription take — they are different products (promoting other creators vs charging your own readers).
Pick Kit if the email list exists to sell a product, a course, or a membership, and you want behavior-based automations. The free plan is usable for that if 10,000 subscribers and one automation are enough.
Skip Kit if the newsletter is the business, you want an ad network and a 0% take on paid subs, or you need a podcast + site + newsletter in one free login.
Beehiiv: the newsletter as a media property
Beehiiv’s Launch plan is free forever, no card, up to 2,500 subscribers: newsletters, website, podcast (1 episode/month), unlimited sends, recommendation network, custom domains, link-in-bio, API (except Send API), read-only MCP/Copilot.
What Launch does not include, per the official comparison: automations, ad network, paid subscriptions, digital products, referral program, surveys, teams beyond 1, write-access MCP.
Scale is the first plan that looks like a media business: automations, ad network, 0% take on paid subscriptions, digital products, community, surveys, webhooks, 3 team seats, human support. Official FAQ: paid plans “start at $49/month” (that is the 1,000-sub Scale monthly price). Ad Network and Recommendations are marked not in trial and not in all regions.
Max adds remove-branding, sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, appointments as digital products, RSS-to-send, up to 10 publications, unlimited seats, Send API, click-triggered automations, dynamic content.
The published subscription math is the cleanest difference with Kit: Beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription revenue; you pay Stripe 2.9% + $0.30. They contrast this with Substack’s 10%. They do not contrast it with Kit’s 3.5% + 30¢ checkout fee on the same FAQ — do that math yourself for your price point.
Pick Beehiiv if you are running a newsletter (and maybe a podcast and a simple site) and you want growth and ads in the same product. Skip Beehiiv if you need a visual automation builder on day one for free, or your main revenue is a course/digital product and you do not want to pay Scale to unlock checkout.
How to choose
You are starting a list and have not sold anything yet. Kit Newsletter (free to 10,000, one automation, checkout available) or Beehiiv Launch (free to 2,500, site + podcast, no checkout). Kit if you expect to sell a file or a membership soon. Beehiiv if the public newsletter and site come first.
You sell a course, a template, or coaching. Kit. Automations and native checkout are the point. Creator at $39/mo (1,000 subs) if one automation is no longer enough.
The newsletter is what people pay for, or you want ads in the issue. Beehiiv Scale. 0% take on paid subs is the published reason. Confirm the Ad Network is available in your region.
You need both: a newsletter and a product funnel. Possible, but you will pay for the job you care about more. Kit Creator if the funnel is the business and the newsletter is the list. Beehiiv Scale if the newsletter is the business and the product is a side SKU. Running both tools is a cost decision, not a moral one.
You are at 8,000 subscribers and still on free. Only Kit’s free plan still fits. Beehiiv Launch stops at 2,500; Scale at 10,000 is $109/mo monthly on the published table.
Who should use neither
- You send cold email to people who did not ask. That is Instantly / Lemlist / Smartlead, not these two.
- You run a Shopify store and need cart/browse flows. That is Omnisend or Klaviyo, not a creator newsletter tool.
- You want a “best email tool 2026” medal. These two optimize for different revenue lines.
Official pages used (14 August 2026)
- Kit pricing: https://kit.com/pricing
- Kit Newsletter plan: https://help.kit.com/en/articles/9053602-the-kit-newsletter-plan
- Kit Creator vs Pro: https://help.kit.com/en/articles/4494683-creator-plan-vs-creator-pro
- Beehiiv pricing: https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing
Prices and regional ad-network availability change. If this article disagrees with checkout, trust checkout.