beehiiv promises a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and no credit card. That part held up when we signed up. What the marketing pages don’t show you is the phone check, the paid button placed first, and the fact that the welcome automation you build on day one runs on a trial.
What beehiiv Is and Why We Put It Through a Test
beehiiv is a newsletter platform: you write posts in its editor, it sends them to your subscribers by email, and it hosts a website and archive for your publication. Its cofounder and CEO, Tyler Denk, says the company launched in 2021 and now sends more than 5 billion emails a month (beehiiv, New Plans and Pricing). That is the company’s own figure, so treat it as a claim, not an audit.
So how does beehiiv work in practice? You create a publication, collect subscribers through forms or a hosted subscribe page, and publish posts that go out as emails and live on the web. Paid plans add ways to earn money from the list: ads, paid subscriptions and paid recommendations.
We reviewed it because “beehiiv newsletter” searches lead mostly to forum threads, where people ask whether the free plan is real and why the signup wants a phone number. Those are questions a test answers better than a feature list.
Key Takeaways
beehiiv’s own State of Newsletters 2026 report says new newsletters on the platform reached a median of 482 subscribers in their first month (beehiiv, State of Newsletters 2026), well inside the 2,500-subscriber free plan. In our test the free plan was real and needed no card. The welcome automation we built, though, ran on a 14-day Pro trial.
Quick Verdict: Is beehiiv a Good Newsletter Platform in 2026?
Yes, for most first newsletters: the billing page in our account listed a Free Plan of 2,500 subscribers at $0/month with unlimited email sends, and a prebuilt welcome email went live in one publish. The catch is what happens after the trial. beehiiv’s public pricing table shows live custom automations starting at the Lite plan, not Free (beehiiv pricing).
| If you want… | Our verdict | Why, from our test and beehiiv’s pricing page |
|---|---|---|
| A free start with room to grow | Good fit | Free Plan listed in-app as 2,500 subscribers, $0/month, unlimited sends |
| No credit card at signup | Good fit | The 14-day trial card said “No credit card required” |
| A quick welcome email | Good fit, with a caveat | A prebuilt automation went live in one publish, but during the Pro trial |
| Your own domain on day one | Not on Free | The trial card marked “Connect a custom domain” as not included |
| Ads or paid subscriptions right away | Not on Free | The Ad Network and paid subscriptions start at Lite |
| A team of editors | Not on Free | Free has 1 team seat |
Who should look elsewhere? If you need a team, your own sending domain, or money from the list in the first week, plan for a paid plan from the start. If you just want to start writing to a few hundred readers, the free plan covers it.
How We Tested beehiiv: Seven Tasks on a Free Account and Pro Trial
We tested beehiiv on October 20, 2026, with one work account, Google sign-in and no credit card. The account landed on day 1 of a 14-day Pro trial. We ran the same seven tasks we use for every newsletter platform on Indie Stack Lab:
- Sign up.
- Create a newsletter.
- Build a subscribe form and get the embed code.
- Set up an automatic welcome email.
- Subscribe our own address and check that the welcome email arrives.
- Write an email and send it only to ourselves as a test.
- Read the free plan limits from the billing page.
We never sent a post to a real list. Every email went to our own inbox. When a step needed a card or an upgrade, we stopped and wrote down what the screen said.
Why these seven? Because every new newsletter goes through them in its first week, whatever the topic. A platform that makes one of them painful will cost you time right when you have the least of it.
We copied the on-screen text word for word into our test log and kept masked screenshots of each step. When this review quotes a screen, that is a direct quote from the log.
A note on money: Indie Stack Lab may add affiliate links to some tools later. Affiliate links are labeled, and our disclosure page explains how they work. They did not change what we tested or what we wrote down.
Signing Up: Google Sign-In, a Phone Check and Press-and-Hold
Signing up took two checks we did not expect: a “press and hold” human check and an SMS phone verification, both before the dashboard loaded. Google sign-in itself was light. The consent screen asked only for our name and profile picture and our email address.
The phone screen explained itself: “We need to verify your phone number for security. No marketing texts. Ever.” We entered a number, typed the SMS code, and the signup continued.
Is the phone check a problem? For one person starting one newsletter, no. It may matter if you share a business phone across several projects, or if you don’t want a personal number tied to a publishing account. Plan for it before you start.
The “press and hold” check came back later too. When we subscribed our own address on the publication’s hosted subscribe page, the same human check appeared. Your readers will see it, so mention it if you send people to that page from somewhere they might give up easily.
The Plan Screen: Paid Button First, No-Card Trial Second
The plan screen put a paid offer first, “Upgrade now and save 10% forever” with a “Get started” button, and the no-card 14-day trial second. Before that, a short onboarding asked “What are you building?” We picked Newsletter (“I want to start”) and marked Podcast and Digital products “Not for me.”
The trial card read: “Or start your 14-day trial — After your trial, you’ll be moved to our Free plan, good for up to 2,500 subscribers … No credit card required.” That is clear and honest fine print. It just sits in the second position, so a hurried reader could click the paid button by mistake.
What did we get after picking the trial? beehiiv created a publication automatically, named after the account (“
beehiiv’s pricing page describes the same arrangement from the other side: “Free is free forever, with no credit card required. Lite and Pro include a free trial so you can use paid features before you subscribe” (beehiiv pricing). In other words, the trial adds features on top of Free. It does not replace Free.
Subscribe Forms Are Built for Other Websites
beehiiv’s subscribe forms gave us one <script> embed snippet and an optional second script for UTM tracking, and the page warned that these forms are meant for websites other than beehiiv’s own. We built ours under Audience → Subscribe forms → Create new form, added a title and subtitle, saved, and opened Get embed code.
The note on the forms page is worth reading twice: “These subscribe forms are designed to be embedded on external websites. They won’t work correctly inside beehiiv website pages.” If your newsletter site lives on beehiiv, you add a signup block in the website builder instead. Where to put forms so people actually sign up is a bigger topic; our guide on how to build an email list covers it step by step.
So which one do you need? If you already have a blog on WordPress or another builder, use the embed code. If beehiiv hosts your site, skip the forms page and use the website builder’s block. The optional attribution script forwards UTM parameters, which helps if you want to see which campaign brought each subscriber.
Our test subscriber later showed up with the acquisition source “website: direct / (none).” That is what a direct visit to the hosted subscribe page looks like in the subscriber list.
The Welcome Automation Went Live in a Few Clicks
Our welcome email took one prebuilt automation and one Publish click, and the email arrived when we subscribed our own address. The checklist step “Welcome new readers” opened an automation called “Welcome Email (with re-entry)”: trigger “Signed up,” then “Send email, Subject: Welcome to our newsletter.”
We pressed Publish. A confirmation dialog said: “Once published, subscribers who meet the trigger conditions will start moving through the flow.” We confirmed, and the status changed from Draft to Live.
Would it actually fire for a new reader? We subscribed our own address on the hosted subscribe page, passed the second “press and hold” check, and the subscriber list showed “Showing 1 of 1 subscriber,” status Active, tier Free. The welcome email arrived in our inbox.
What surprised us was the automation’s own counter. Right after the signup, it still showed 0 recipients, even though the email had already landed. Don’t judge a new automation by that number in the first few minutes.
Does the welcome automation survive the trial?
We can’t confirm it, because we built it on day 1 of the Pro trial and did not wait for the account to move to Free. beehiiv’s documentation points one way, though. The pricing table lists a “Welcome email” on Free, but “Live custom automations” and the “Signed up” trigger start at Lite (beehiiv pricing).
The automations page says the same thing in older plan names: email automations need a paid plan, “however, all accounts have the ability to send a 1-email Welcome Email triggered by a user subscribing” (beehiiv automations). So expect a single welcome email on Free. Plan on Lite if you want a sequence. For what to put in those first emails, see our welcome email examples and setup guide.
Writing a Post and Sending a Test to Ourselves
beehiiv sent our test post to exactly 1 recipient, ourselves, and the sender address in the preview ended in @mail.beehiiv.com. We wrote a post titled “Indie Stack Lab test send” with one paragraph, opened the Review step, and used “Send test email.” We did not press Schedule.
The test dialog was clear about who gets the email: “It only goes to the addresses you choose, not your subscribers.” The button read “Send to 1 recipient.” That wording is a small thing, but it removes the fear of blasting a half-finished draft to your list.
Why does the sender address matter? Without your own domain, readers see your publication name with an address at mail.beehiiv.com. That is normal for a new newsletter. If you want mail from your own domain, look at the custom domain rules in the plan section of this review before you pick a plan.
The test email arrived. We did not send a post to a list, so we have no data on inbox placement for real campaigns. Any review that grades beehiiv’s deliverability without sending real campaigns is guessing.
Free Plan Limits We Saw: 2,500 Subscribers, 1 Seat, 30 Days of Analytics
The billing page in our account listed the Free Plan as “2,500 subs @ $0/month” with “1 team seat · 1 publication · Unlimited email sends · 30 days of analytics”. A line above it said: “You are currently on a free trial of Pro features.”
beehiiv’s public pricing table, which we read on October 23, 2026, shows the same core limits and adds a few more (beehiiv pricing):
| Free plan item | What we saw in the app | What the pricing table says |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribers | 2,500 | Up to 2,500 |
| Price | $0/month | $0, free forever |
| Team seats | 1 | 1 |
| Publications | 1 | 1 |
| Email sends | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Analytics history | 30 days | 30-day lookback window |
| Custom website pages | Not checked | 1 |
| Segments | Not checked | 3 |
| API rate limit | Not checked | Low |
What does 30 days of analytics mean day to day? You can see how last month’s posts did, but not compare this spring with last spring. For a new newsletter that is fine. Once you want to study trends, you’ll want the 12-month window on Lite.
Is 2,500 subscribers enough? For most first newsletters, yes, for a long time. beehiiv’s own report puts the median new newsletter at 8,314 subscribers by the end of its first year (beehiiv, State of Newsletters 2026), but that median covers publishers who stayed on the platform, many of them on paid plans. Read it as an upper reference, not a forecast for you.
What the Trial Includes and Leaves Out: Ads, Custom Domain and Team Seats
The 14-day trial card listed four kinds of features as included and three as not included, so even the trial doesn’t show you everything a paid plan does. Included: automations, segments and A/B testing, beehiiv AI, and the referral program. Not included: “Earn with ads, paid recommendations, and subscriptions,” “Connect a custom domain” and “Invite your team.”
Settings showed one more gap: “Private branding — Not included in free trial … Unlock with Pro plan.” That is the setting that removes the “Powered by” badge.
Why does this matter? Because the trial is the only hands-on look you get before paying, and three of the features people pay for are missing from it. You can’t test ad income, a custom domain or a second editor without upgrading first.
beehiiv plans after the October 2026 rename
beehiiv renamed its plans on October 1, 2026: Launch became Free, Scale became Lite, and Max became Pro, with Enterprise unchanged (beehiiv, New Plans and Pricing). Existing customers keep their price until their first renewal on or after November 1, 2026. Older reviews that mention Launch, Scale or Max are describing the same tiers under old names.
Here is what the pricing page showed for a list of 1,000 subscribers when we read it (beehiiv pricing):
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Subscriber limit | Team seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Up to 2,500 | 1 |
| Lite | $49/month | $59/month | Up to 100,000 | 2 |
| Pro | $95/month | $109/month | Up to 250,000 | 10 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Unlimited |
Paid plans are priced by list size, so these numbers rise as your list grows. For prices at larger list sizes and how beehiiv compares on cost, see our beehiiv pricing guide.
Which plan unlocks what? According to the comparison table, custom domains, the Ad Network, paid subscriptions and live custom automations start at Lite. Removing beehiiv branding, unlimited webhooks and unlimited analytics history start at Pro.
Monetization, the Website Builder and the API, From beehiiv’s Docs
beehiiv’s monetization, website and developer features are all documented publicly, and the Ad Network alone pays out more than $1M a month to creators, according to beehiiv’s CEO (beehiiv, New Plans and Pricing). None of this section comes from our test. The trial did not include ads, and we did not build a site or call the API.
Ad Network and other ways to earn
How do you get paid from the Ad Network? The FAQ says it is available to “anyone on the Lite plan or above who is actively sending on beehiiv” (beehiiv Ad Network). Payouts are either CPM or CPC. The page’s own example: a $5 CPM earns $5 for every 1,000 unique opens, and a $2 CPC with 100 verified clicks earns $200.
You choose which offers to run. Each post can carry up to 1 primary ad with a logo and 2 secondary ads without one. A performance recap arrives about 96 hours after the send.
The other earning tools are paid subscriptions, paid recommendations and digital products. beehiiv says it takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue, while Stripe’s standard fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction still applies (beehiiv pricing). For how these models compare across platforms, see our guide to newsletter monetization.
Website builder
Every plan includes the website builder, including Free, but the pricing table caps Free at 1 custom page with basic blocks, Lite at 5 pages and Pro at unlimited (beehiiv pricing). beehiiv describes it as a no-code builder for landing pages, sales pages and full sites, with a prompt-based AI option (beehiiv website builder).
Our one first-hand note from the forms test applies here: forms from the Subscribe forms page are for external sites, and beehiiv’s own pages use a signup block.
API, webhooks and MCP
The beehiiv API is open on every plan, with a rate limit of 30 requests per minute on Free, 180 on Lite and 500 on Pro (beehiiv developer docs). You create a key under Settings → API, and the docs warn that you can’t view the key again after you leave the page (beehiiv, Create an API Key).
Webhooks are not on Free: the pricing table lists 3 on Lite and unlimited on Pro. The beehiiv MCP, which lets assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT read your account data, has read access on Free and write access from Lite (beehiiv MCP).
beehiiv Next to Kit and MailerLite on the Same Seven Tasks
On the same seven tasks and the same day, beehiiv needed 1 publish for a live welcome email, Kit needed 3 separate pieces, and MailerLite could not go live without an authenticated domain. Here is how the three compared on the steps that differed most:
| Task result | beehiiv | Kit | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free subscriber cap | 2,500 (in-app) | Up to 10,000 (public pricing page) | 250 (in-app) |
| Google sign-in | Yes | No | Yes |
| Extra checks at signup | Phone SMS, “press and hold” | None | Postal address |
| Card prompt during onboarding | Paid button shown first | Full-screen card modal | None |
| Steps to a live welcome email | 1 publish | 3 pieces | Blocked until domain is verified |
| Trial length | 14 days | 14 days | 14 days |
beehiiv was the fastest to a working welcome email and the only one of the three that showed its free plan limits in full inside the app. Kit lists a bigger free plan on its pricing page and took more setup. MailerLite has the smallest free list but asks for domain authentication before anything goes live.
Which one fits you? That depends on whether you own a domain and whether you plan to sell products. Our side-by-side comparison of beehiiv, Kit and MailerLite walks through each situation. For the full single-tool tests, read our Kit email marketing review and our MailerLite review. Comparing costs instead? Our Kit pricing guide and MailerLite pricing guide list each free plan’s limits, and if Substack is on your list too, start with whether Substack is free.
Should You Start Your beehiiv Newsletter on the Free Plan?
Start on Free if your list will stay under 2,500 subscribers for a while and one welcome email is enough, because that is what the pricing table promises after the 14-day trial ends (beehiiv pricing). Move to Lite when you need a sequence, your own domain or ad income.
Before your trial clock runs out, take these steps:
- Write down the three features your newsletter can’t live without, then check each one in the Free column of the pricing table, not in the trial.
- Have a phone number ready for the SMS check at signup.
- If beehiiv will host your site, plan on the website builder’s signup block instead of the embed code.
- Send yourself a test email before your first real post. It takes a minute and shows you exactly what readers will see.
- Keep your subscriber list exportable. The pricing table lists data exports on every plan, Free included.
Would we start a new newsletter here? For a solo writer with no domain and no budget, yes. It was the smoothest start of the three newsletter platforms we tested.
References
- beehiiv: Pricing
- beehiiv: beehiiv Launches New Plans and Pricing (October 2026)
- beehiiv: The State of Newsletters 2026
- beehiiv: Newsletter Automation
- beehiiv: Ad Network
- beehiiv: Website Builder
- beehiiv: MCP
- beehiiv Developer Docs: Rate Limiting
- beehiiv Developer Docs: Create an API Key
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business