beehiiv

beehiiv Review: The Newsletter Platform Built by Media People, for Media People

beehiiv launched in 2021 with a founding team that included Tyler Denk and others from Morning Brew — the newsletter business that grew from a Columbia University project to a $75M acquisition by Business Insider. The platform is built on the thesis that newsletter businesses need different infrastructure than general-purpose email marketing tools: growth mechanics, advertising access, paid subscription management, and publication tools rather than CRM features and e-commerce automation.

The Media Business Model

beehiiv is designed for newsletter-as-media-business rather than newsletter-as-marketing-channel. The distinction is meaningful:

A marketing channel newsletter (lead nurturing, customer retention, product announcements) is well-served by Kit, Mailchimp, or Brevo. The newsletter is a means to a commercial end that lies elsewhere in the business.

A media business newsletter (Morning Brew, The Hustle, 1440 Daily Digest) generates revenue directly through paid subscriptions and advertising. The newsletter is the product. beehiiv is built for the latter model.

Growth Mechanics

beehiiv's built-in growth features are its most distinctive capability:

Referral Programme: Subscribers are given a personalised referral link. When they refer a specified number of new subscribers, they unlock a reward (exclusive content, merchandise, access). This gamified referral mechanic drives compounding organic list growth without paid acquisition — the model that grew Morning Brew to millions of subscribers.

Recommendations: Newsletter writers on beehiiv can recommend other beehiiv newsletters to their subscribers at the end of issues or in standalone recommendation emails. Reciprocal recommendation agreements between newsletters generate mutual list growth — a network effect available only to platforms with multiple publications sharing infrastructure.

Boost: A paid subscriber acquisition feature where creators pay a fixed cost per acquired subscriber, sourced from the beehiiv network. For newsletters willing to pay for growth, this provides a directly attributable acquisition channel within the platform.

Ad Network and Monetisation

beehiiv's ad network connects newsletter writers with brand advertisers who want sponsorship placements in newsletters. Writers apply to the network, advertisers select placements, and sponsored content appears within newsletter issues with payment managed through beehiiv. This eliminates the prospecting, negotiation, and invoicing overhead of direct sponsorship sales.

For paid subscriptions, beehiiv takes 0% of subscription revenue — unlike Substack's 10% commission on all paid subscriber revenue. At meaningful paid subscriber scale, the cost difference is significant: a newsletter generating $10,000/month in subscriptions keeps $10,000 on beehiiv versus $9,000 on Substack.

Publication Quality

beehiiv's web publication feature creates a clean publication website for each newsletter, with an archive of all issues, a subscribe page, and reader-specific views for paid subscribers. The design is modern and media-publication-style — more polished than Kit's default newsletter web archive and more customisable than Substack's fixed-format presentation.

Limitation Context

beehiiv's integration ecosystem is younger than Mailchimp's or Kit's. For newsletter businesses where the newsletter is the primary product, most workflow needs are handled within the platform. For businesses that need to connect newsletter subscriber data to a CRM, e-commerce platform, or analytics stack through native integrations (rather than Zapier), the options are more limited.

The Scale plan at $42/month (up to 1,000 subscribers) is more expensive than Kit's Creator plan ($25/month) for a comparable subscriber count — a premium for the growth features and ad network access.

Verdict

beehiiv is the best infrastructure platform for newsletter businesses that want to grow through referrals, earn advertising revenue, and manage paid subscriptions without paying Substack's commission. For marketing channel newsletters or general business email marketing, Kit, MailerLite, or Brevo are more cost-effective.

Score: 7.8/10 — Best platform for newsletter media businesses; higher pricing and younger ecosystem limit appeal for general email marketing.