beehiiv vs Kit pricing in 2026

Entry paid plans, side by side

Kit Creator against beehiiv Scale, the cheapest paid plan each vendor sells. Both publish an annual rate.

Prices are compiled from public vendor pages and can lag behind a change. Cells marked Der are calculated from published rules and cells marked Est are rough figures. Neither is an invoice or a quote, so confirm with the vendor before you spend.

Contacts	beehiiv Scale	Kit Creator	Cheaper
500	$49$43 annualDer	$39$32.50 annualDer	Kit by $10
1,000	$49$43 annualVer	$39$32.50 annualVer	Kit by $10
2,500	$69$61 annualVer	$59$49.17 annualDer	Kit by $10
5,000	$89$78 annualVer	$89$74.17 annualVer	level
10,000	$109$96 annualVer	$139$115.83 annualVer	beehiiv by $30
25,000	$169$149 annualVer	$199$165.83 annualVer	beehiiv by $30
50,000	$249$219 annualVer	$379$315.83 annualDer	beehiiv by $130
100,000	$329$290 annualVer	$679$565.83 annualDer	beehiiv by $350

beehiiv Scale against Kit Creator, month to month billing, with the per month cost of paying yearly underneath. The Cheaper column compares the monthly prices. Plans are not feature matched.

The comparison changes twice

beehiiv at 1k: $49; Scale, or nothing at all on Launch, which covers the same list for free
Kit at 1k: $39; Creator, or nothing at all on Newsletter through 10,000 subscribers
beehiiv at 100k: $329; the largest breakpoint here. Kit Creator is $679 at the same size

Kit Creator undercuts beehiiv Scale at the small paid stops. At 5,000 contacts both publish $89. At 10,000 beehiiv Scale takes over at $109 against $139, and it stays the cheaper paid plan at every larger list size where both publish a price.

At 10,000 contacts Scale is $109 against Creator at $139. At 25,000 the gap is $169 against $199. At 50,000 it is $249 against $379. Anyone deciding on that gap is deciding on something other than send volume, because both plans include unlimited sends.

Both free plans land on breakpoints

Kit Newsletter holds 10,000 subscribers. beehiiv Launch holds 2,500. That is the part of the comparison a paid price table hides.

List size	Monthly	Confidence	Note
500 on the list	free	Verified	beehiiv Launch is also free at this size. Scale would be $49 a month if the monetisation features forced a paid plan.
1,000 on the list	free	Verified	beehiiv Launch is also free at this size. Scale would be $49 a month if the monetisation features forced a paid plan.
2,500 on the list	free	Verified	beehiiv Launch is also free at this size. Scale would be $69 a month if the monetisation features forced a paid plan.
5,000 on the list	free	Verified	beehiiv Launch is not sold at this size. Its cheapest paid cell here is Scale at $89 a month, which is $1,068 over a year.
10,000 on the list	free	Verified	beehiiv Launch is not sold at this size. Its cheapest paid cell here is Scale at $109 a month, which is $1,308 over a year.

Kit Newsletter at every breakpoint it covers, with the beehiiv price for the same list in the note. Newsletter and Launch both allow unlimited sends. No visual automations or email sequences. Sends, forms and landing pages are unlimited, so what usually forces a Kit user onto a paid plan is the first automation or sequence rather than the subscriber ceiling.

The same list produces two different contact counts

Kit. Kit bills confirmed subscribers only, and its help pages list every other status as outside the billing total: unsubscribed, complained, bounced, blocked and unconfirmed. Hard bounces are unsubscribed automatically.

beehiiv. beehiiv defines an active subscriber as one who has not unsubscribed and has not been marked inactive, and the tier follows the active count. Paused, pending and inactive subscriptions are all outside it.

Put one list through both rules and the gap stops being theoretical. A list of active subscribers with a large unsubscribed pile can sit inside Kit Newsletter or beehiiv Launch on one count and climb a paid tier on the other. Cold subscribers still count. Anyone who has not opened or clicked in 90 days keeps the confirmed status, so the cheapest list in this dataset to keep clean is also the one where inactivity is invisible on the invoice until it is removed. Suppression is not the same as unsubscribing. beehiiv's own advice for working out who can actually receive a send is to take the active count and subtract the suppression list, which means suppressed addresses sit inside the number that sets the bill. The bounced answer is derived from that instruction rather than from a billing statement, so it is marked derived. The rule is recorded for all six vendors.

Neither side meters sends

beehiiv includes unlimited sends on every plan including Launch. Kit includes unlimited sends on Newsletter, Creator and Creator Pro. Send volume never touches either bill on this page, so a weekly newsletter and a daily sender pay the same tier price for the same list size.

That is the opposite of Mailchimp Essentials, which includes a multiple of the contact count in monthly sends and adds a charge when the allowance is passed. beehiiv vs Mailchimp and Mailchimp vs Kit carry that meter on the Mailchimp side.

Step up plans

Kit Creator Pro against beehiiv Max. Creator Pro adds subscriber scoring and deliverability tools. Max adds sponsorship tools, more publications and branding removal. Not feature matched, but it is the pairing a growing sender chooses between.

Contacts	beehiiv Max	Kit Creator Pro	Cheaper
500	$109$96 annualDer	$79$65.83 annualDer	Kit by $30
1,000	$109$96 annualVer	$79$65.83 annualVer	Kit by $30
2,500	$149$131 annualVer	$99$82.50 annualDer	Kit by $50
5,000	$169$149 annualVer	$139$115.83 annualVer	Kit by $30
10,000	$219$193 annualVer	$189$157.50 annualVer	Kit by $30
25,000	$289$254 annualVer	$279$232.50 annualVer	Kit by $10
50,000	$379$334 annualVer	$519$432.50 annualDer	beehiiv by $140
100,000	$459$404 annualVer	$879$732.50 annualDer	beehiiv by $420

beehiiv Max against Kit Creator Pro, month to month billing, with the per month cost of paying yearly underneath. The Cheaper column compares the monthly prices. Plans are not feature matched.

Max is more expensive than Scale at every stop, and Creator Pro is more expensive than Creator. The gap between the step up plans is therefore a different question from the entry plan comparison above. Read the confidence badges: several Kit Creator rows are estimates where trackers disagree, and beehiiv Scale and Max above 5,000 subscribers were reread in snapshot 3.

Where these numbers are soft

Short version: Kit's free plan is the firm small-list answer, and beehiiv Scale is the firmer large-list paid ladder after the snapshot 3 calculator read.