Choosing an email platform for a newsletter: four plans, four different bets
There is no "best newsletter platform" — there are four platforms that each bet on a different way of making money, and your choice should match how you intend to earn, not which feature list looks longest. Pick the platform whose business model is aligned with yours and the pricing mostly stops mattering.
The four bets
- Kit bets on your audience size. 10,000 subscribers free, unlimited sends, no time limit. It withholds automations until you pay $33/month. If you sell your own products, Kit's commerce is the deepest here.
- beehiiv bets on your subscription revenue. 2,500 subscribers free, then $49/month at Lite with a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions. If you will charge readers, this is the model that stops taxing you for succeeding.
- MailerLite bets on small senders needing automation. 1,000 subscribers free with automations and forms, then $12/month. Cheapest credible paid tier in the category.
- systeme.io bets on replacing your whole stack. 2,000 contacts free, 0% transaction fees on every tier, unlimited sub-accounts, and funnels and courses in the same product. Newsletter ergonomics are the weakest of the four; breadth is the point.
Free tiers side by side
| Free plan | Kit | beehiiv | MailerLite | systeme.io |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subscriber / contact cap | 10,000 | 2,500 | 1,000 | 2,000 |
| Sends | Unlimited | Unlimited | Monthly allowance (12,000 at 1,000 subs) | Unlimited |
| Automations | No | No | Yes | 1 rule |
| Seats | 1 | 1 | 1–2 | Unlimited sub-accounts |
The free-tier ranking is not a straight line, because the caps are not the only variable. Kit's 10,000 is worth more than MailerLite's 1,000 — unless you need a welcome sequence on day one, in which case MailerLite's 1,000 is worth infinitely more than Kit's 10,000.
Paid plans, and the fee that is not in the plan price
| Platform | Entry paid | Revenue fee | Worth it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | Creator $33/mo | 3.5% + 30¢ per product transaction (as listed on its plan table) | You sell guides, courses or coaching |
| beehiiv | Lite $49/mo | 0% on paid subscriptions | You charge readers monthly |
| MailerLite | Comfort $12/mo | Commerce fees apply; check per plan | You need automation cheaply |
| systeme.io | Startup $17/mo | 0% on all tiers | You sell products and want funnels and courses too |
Run the arithmetic rather than trusting the badge. A paid newsletter at $10/month with 500 readers is $5,000/month in revenue. On beehiiv Lite the platform takes $49. On a 10%-take platform you would surrender about $500 — more than ten times the subscription. That single line usually decides the platform for anyone with a paid tier.
Conversely, if you sell a $29 guide twice a week, Kit's listed 3.5% + 30¢ works out to roughly $11/month in fees — trivially small, and Kit's commerce flow will probably earn it back. We flag the fee line rather than resolve it because the pricing page carries both "low fees" messaging and the percentage in its comparison table; we will publish a measured fee from a live test sale.
The subscriber count where each becomes cheapest
- 0–1,000: Kit free if you do not need automation; MailerLite free if you do. Either way, pay nothing.
- 1,000–2,500: MailerLite Comfort at $12 is the cheapest paid route. Kit is still free — so the question is purely whether you need sequences.
- 2,500–10,000: Kit free still wins on price if no automation is needed. Once you pay, Kit Creator $33 against beehiiv Lite $49 — Kit is cheaper unless you have paid subscriptions, in which case the take rate dwarfs the $16 difference.
- Above 10,000: everyone is charging. Re-price at your actual list size, and read the subscriber caps carefully — beehiiv's Lite covers 100,000, which is unusual.
What actually makes you switch later
- Deliverability, not features. If your emails start landing in promotions, no feature saves you. Check that your platform lets you authenticate your own sending domain before you commit.
- Export quality. Export your list in week one and open the file. Tags and custom fields are what usually go missing, and they are what your segments depend on.
- Whether you are taxed for growth. Percentage-of-revenue fees are cheap when small and expensive when successful. Know which model you are signing.
What we cannot verify
Plan limits, prices and fee lines above come from each vendor's pricing page, verified October 23, 2026, and we re-check quarterly. Our hands-on testing cycle is in progress — we have not run live campaigns on these platforms, so we cannot report measured inbox placement, deliverability differences, or real transaction fees from a test sale. The Kit 3.5% + 30¢ line is as displayed, not as measured by us. Those findings will be added per our How We Test process. For direct comparisons see Kit vs MailerLite and beehiiv vs Kit.