Substack vs Beehiiv: Which is Better for Your Newsletter?

Substack and Beehiiv are two great ways to monetize your content. What’s surprising is the fact that they’re unique in their own ways. 

What you might find in one platform might not be available in another and vice-versa. More importantly, it’s more of an old school vs new school thing. 

Sounds interesting? Let’s see how both platforms can help you achieve your goal as a content creator. 

1st - Check This if You Hate Reading.. 

2nd - Let’s Read! 

Substack Overview 

Substack was founded in 2017. It’s a simple platform where you can publish your articles and get paid for it. 

What I like the most about Substack is that you can add a custom domain to your newsletter website. Apart from that, you get all the marketing tools you need to market yourself.

Key Features

Customization 

• Enable features such as a notes tab, color-customizable links, and links to yours posts
• Upload your site's square logo, wordmark, and a cover photo
• Customize the site design to suit your specific needs as a writer
• Supports seven different languages
• Set up navigation with pages, sections, and tags to mirror a full-scale website
• Include a personal biography on your profile
• Create a distinct About page
• Integrate with Google Analytics via Measurement ID and Tag Manager
• Connect to social media insights with Facebook, Parse.ly, and Twitter tracking pixels
• Utilize intelligent image cropping for optimizing post thumbnails

Monetization 

• Integrate Stripe to enable monthly paid subscriptions from readers
• Add affiliate links into your articles to earn commissions

Analytics 

• Monitor total traffic and identify top referral sources
• Analyze subscriber engagement and activity reports
• Review email open rates
• Access reports from your surveys
• Receive monthly statistics via email

Marketing 

• Chat feature to facilitate real-time conversations with subscribers
• Add social media links

Management 

• Send email reminders for draft submissions
• Provide live chat support
• Help center

Beehiiv Overview 

Launched in 2021 by former Morning Brew employees, Beehiiv helps creators scale and monetize their audiences. 

The platform was designed to break down barriers to content sharing, making it easier for creators to reach their full potential.

As someone who appreciates tools that empower creators, I believe Beehiiv holds significant promise for growing and enhancing the creator community.

Key Features 

Customization 

• Pre-built templates and themes 
• Custom pages 
• In-built site builders 
• Add guest authors to your post 
• Show byline in email 
• Hide your articles from feed 
• Start up to 3 publications in the free plan 

Monetization 

• Earn with ads 
• Get paid by charging a monthly subscription fee to your users 
• Make money from your newsletter by boosting other publications in the beehiiv network

Analytics 

• Subscribers report (Scale plan) 
• 3D post analytics 
• 3D click analytics 

Marketing

• Get API access 
• Let people refer you using the referral program (Scale plan) 
• Recommend other publishers so that they can recommend you 
• Build a custom magic link to boost conversions with 1-click subscribe links
• Use boosts as a way to advertise yourself 
• Automate your marketing tasks with certain triggers 

Management 

• Chatbot assistant that can resolve your queries 
• Submit a support ticket and get response within 24-48 hours 
• Knowledgebase and video tutorials 

Substack vs Beehiiv: Comparison & Walkthrough! 

#1 - Popularity 

In 2023, Beehiiv got over 50 million unique readers. Well, that’s the kind of number Substack got in a month. 

A report from Backlinko suggests that Substack got over 49 million readers in January 2024. 

So there’s no match when it comes to popularity. 

Winner: Beehiiv 

#2 - Writer’s Dashboard 

On Beehiiv, you can see that everything is available on the left side. From posts to monetization techniques, there’s everything you need. 

If we look at Substack, it’s quite simple: 

Even though Substack is quite simple, its interface doesn’t excite me the way Beehiiv’s did. For instance, I could figure out what to do within seconds. 

That’s not it, the internal guidance helped me learn everything without hassle. 

Winner: Beehiiv 

#3 - Platform’s Editor 

Substack has an easy to use word editor that can help you create and publish great articles. To be honest, sometimes it reminds me of the old style Blogger’s interface. 

Beehiiv’s editor isn’t less than Substack. Not only that, you can have a lot more features here. 

Look at the top and you’ll see things like email, website seo, and delivery. 

Compared to Substack, Beehiiv offers a lot more. 

Winner: Beehiiv 

#4 - Analytics 

Unless you opt for the scale plan, forget about analytics. 

On the contrary, Substack lets you track where your traffic is coming from, top sources, pledges, subscriber reports, and a lot more for free. 

Winner: Substack 

#5 - Profitability 

Want to see how much Beehiiv users earned last month? Look what I’ve got here: 

So that proves people are earning here. In fact, there are some newsletters that are making millions on Beehiiv. 

Now if we talk about Substack, there are stories which explain how top earners are making $25 million a year.

Winner: Tie 

Final Thoughts! 

You sure newsletter is your thing? In that case, I’d recommend Beehiiv with a custom domain name and a plan of course. 

If it’s an on and off thing for you, I would recommend Substack over Beehiiv. At least, you won’t have to pay for features like analytics. 

Also, Substack gets more visitors from Google. So you might find your luck and try both later. 

Yes, this can happen. Substack’s top newsletter Lenny Rachitsky is quite famous on Beehiiv as well. 

Actually, they did the right thing to shine everywhere. And that’s the kind of strategy I’d suggest you as well. 

Start small with Substack and grow bigger with Beehiiv.