Beehiiv pricing · Free, Lite $49, Pro $95, and the active-sub cliff

Beehiiv’s plan names moved. A lot of review sites did not.

As of a 2026-10-02 scrape, public pricing shows Free, Lite at $49, and Pro at $95, plus Enterprise custom. Older posts still teach Launch, Scale, and Max. Those names are stale. Use Free / Lite / Pro when you model the bill. The economics below still hold. Active subscribers drive the cliff. Platform cut is 0%. Stripe is not.

Plan rename · Free / Lite / Pro

Free is $0. Lite is $49 per month. Pro is $95 per month. Yearly billing toggles on the vendor page.

Map the old labels in your notes if you must. Launch lined up with Free. Scale lined up with today’s Lite floor. Max lined up with today’s Pro floor. Do not copy EmailTooltester or MarketerMilk Scale/Max tables as current plan names.

Open Beehiiv on Free / Lite / Pro, not on a 2024 screenshot.

Active subscribers · not total list · drive the bill

Beehiiv support says plan tiers follow total active subscribers across all publications in the workspace. Inactive and unsubscribed contacts do not count the same way. Multi-publication stacks sum into one number.

Crossing a tier steps the monthly price for the whole account. It is not per newsletter. Three small pubs can push you over a cliff together.

Free→paid cliff at 2,500 active

Free includes up to 2,500 active subscribers and unlimited sends. One subscriber over that line moves you onto a paid plan. Lite’s public floor is $49.

“Free forever” marketing hides a growth event. The cliff is list size, not send volume. ESP (email service provider) buyers often fear send caps. Beehiiv’s scarce unit is active subscribers.

Third-party tier tables sometimes show higher dollars after 2,500. Those grids move. Confirm the live slider before you lock a forecast. Do not invent a full custom grid here.

0% platform cut · Stripe still taxes success

Beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription and digital product revenue. That claim is on the pricing FAQ.

Stripe still charges 2.9% + $0.30. “0% take rate” is not 0% payment cost. Net take-home is platform cut plus card fees. Beehiiv’s platform cut is zero. Stripe is not.

Silent sticker steps · dated operator color

A 2025-03 Reddit thread on r/beehiiv reported the older Scale plan rising from $39 to $49 per month without clear communication. Users said they found it on the bill. Treat that as an operator report, not a press release.

Today’s Lite card already sits at $49. The lesson is the failure mode. List-tier and plan stickers can move. Re-check billing when you grow. Prefer the live Free / Lite / Pro cards over memory of Scale.

Pro is a job upgrade · not “more subscribers”

Pro adds the deeper product jobs. Think remove branding, dynamic content, priority support, and more publications. Buy Pro when those jobs matter. Do not buy Pro because you think a higher sticker flattens subscriber tiers by magic. Subscriber caps still set the list cliff on each plan family.

Exact publication limits move with the FAQ. Confirm live before you promise a multi-pub architecture.

Wrong buy · Beehiiv is not a cold-outbound sequencer

Growth loops (referrals, paid recommendations, ad network) are the product. Cold outbound fleets buy Smartlead plus Zapmail, Inboxkit, or Premium Inboxes. They do not buy Beehiiv Lite to rotate fifty mailboxes.

Keep Substack, Kit, Ghost, and Mailchimp as peer fee notes. Link owned compares when you need head-to-head. The hero here is Beehiiv.

What to change this week

If your notes still say Launch / Scale / Max, rewrite them to Free / Lite / Pro. Sum active subscribers across every publication in the workspace. Model the 2,500 Free cap before a big growth push. If paid subs or ads are the job, budget Lite at $49, not Free.

Stripe applies on both Beehiiv and Substack. The platform-cut difference is Beehiiv 0% versus Substack 10%.

Next · Substack pricing shows when Substack's 10% cut costs more than a Beehiiv plan · Try Beehiiv when the newsletter is the business.