Substack vs Beehiiv: Which Newsletter Platform Pays Creators More in 2025?

Substack and Beehiiv are the two platforms that independent newsletter writers argue about most. Both promise to help creators earn a living from their writing. Both have meaningful advantages. And both have a blind spot that costs creators real money — one that neither platform has shown any urgency to fix.

If you’re trying to decide between them, or you’re already on one and wondering whether to switch, this breakdown covers the monetization mechanics that actually determine your take-home revenue: platform cuts, native ad programs, and the growth lever that determines how much money there is to split in the first place.

How Substack Makes (and Takes) Money

Substack’s model is straightforward: it’s free to publish and build a list. When you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack takes a 10% cut of every subscription payment. Stripe adds another ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. At scale, that 10% is significant — a newsletter earning $10,000/month in subscriptions sends $1,000 straight to Substack, every month, forever.

The upside is that Substack’s free tier is genuinely free. You pay nothing until you earn something. For writers just starting out or testing whether their audience will convert to paid, this removes all financial risk. The platform also has a built-in discovery layer: Substack Notes, the Recommendations feature, and its editorial picks can put new writers in front of readers who are already paying for newsletters on the platform. That distribution benefit is real, even if it’s hard to quantify.

For a deeper look at how writers use Substack’s cross-promotion tools to grow faster, see our post on how indie Substack writers grow 40% faster with cross-promotions.

How Beehiiv’s Model Works

Beehiiv flips the revenue model. Instead of taking a percentage, it charges a flat monthly subscription fee: free up to 2,500 subscribers, then $42/month (Scale plan) or $84/month (Max plan) for larger lists, billed annually. Beehiiv takes 0% of your subscription revenue. Every dollar your readers pay goes to you (minus Stripe fees).

The math favors Beehiiv at higher revenue levels. If you’re earning $5,000/month in paid subscriptions, Substack costs you $500 in platform fees. Beehiiv costs you $42. The breakeven point — where Beehiiv’s flat fee exceeds what Substack would take — is around $420/month in subscription revenue on the Scale plan. Most monetizing creators exceed this within a few months of launching paid.

Beehiiv also runs a native ad network called Beehiiv Boosts. Advertisers pay to have their newsletter recommended inside other Beehiiv newsletters, and creators can earn $1–$3 per new subscriber they drive to a boosted newsletter. This is a meaningful additional revenue stream that Substack has no equivalent for. For high-volume, broad-audience newsletters, Boosts can add hundreds of dollars per month in passive income.

The Missing Piece Both Platforms Ignore

Here’s what the Substack vs Beehiiv debate almost always misses: the platform fee is a percentage of revenue. But the revenue itself depends on how many subscribers you have. Optimize your platform cut while neglecting subscriber growth and you’re debating the size of a slice from a shrinking pie.

The most effective zero-cost growth lever for newsletter writers is the newsletter swap — a mutual recommendation between two writers who share a similar audience. You endorse them to your readers; they endorse you to theirs. No money changes hands. Both lists grow. Done well, a single swap can add 50–300 new subscribers in a week.

Neither Substack nor Beehiiv has built a serious tool for finding and executing matched swaps. Substack’s Recommendations feature lets you endorse other writers, but it doesn’t match you with compatible swap partners or handle coordination. Beehiiv’s Boosts are paid, not peer-to-peer. The discovery problem — finding the right partner at the right size in the right niche — remains entirely manual on both platforms. For a closer look at exactly how to run a swap from start to finish, see The Newsletter Swap Strategy.

How Substoke Fills the Gap — Regardless of Which Platform You Use

Substoke is platform-agnostic. Whether you publish on Substack, Beehiiv, ConvertKit, Ghost, or anything else, you can use Substoke to find and execute matched newsletter swaps. The matching engine pairs you with creators who share your niche and audience size — so every swap you run is with a genuinely compatible partner, not a cold contact you found by scrolling directories for an hour.

More importantly, Substoke turns swaps into a referral income stream. When you bring new creators onto the platform, you earn a commission on their activity. That means the subscriber growth you generate through swaps can also generate cash — something neither Substack nor Beehiiv offers through their native cross-promotion tools.

So which platform pays creators more: Substack or Beehiiv? At low revenue, Substack’s zero upfront cost wins. At higher revenue, Beehiiv’s zero-cut model wins. But the bigger question is how fast your list grows — and on that front, both platforms leave the hardest work to you.