The cheapest way to run a paid newsletter: four platforms, one calculation
Anyone can compare subscription prices, and it tells you almost nothing. On a paid newsletter, the platform's cut of your revenue is usually five to ten times the subscription you pay — so the only comparison that matters is net revenue after platform fees. Here is that calculation, run at a realistic size.
The scenario
A weekly newsletter with 500 paying subscribers at $10/month, so $5,000 in gross subscription revenue, plus 4,000 free subscribers. Payment processing is a constant across all four options, so we hold it out and compare only what each platform adds.
The four structures
| Platform | Subscription | Platform cut of paid subs | Monthly total at $5,000 revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| beehiiv Lite | $49/mo | 0% | $49 |
| systeme.io Startup | $17/mo flat | 0% | $17 (plus any plan limit) |
| Kit Creator | $33/mo | Not a subscription-fee model; product sales carry 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction as listed | $33 if the revenue comes through paid newsletters, more if through product transactions |
| A 10%-take platform (e.g. Substack's model) | $0 | 10% | $500 |
Read across the bottom two rows. The difference between a 0% model and a 10% model, at this size, is roughly $450 a month — $5,400 a year. No feature comparison on this site has a gap that large. Detail on each: beehiiv pricing, Kit pricing, systeme.io pricing.
Where the arithmetic changes
- Small paid lists. At 50 paying readers ($500/month), a 10% cut is $50 — about the same as a $49 subscription. Below roughly 100 paying subscribers, the take rate stops being the deciding factor and the free-tier caps matter more.
- Product sales instead of subscriptions. If you sell a $199 course rather than a $10 subscription, Kit's 3.5% + 30¢ is about $7.27 per sale, and its commerce flow is the most polished of the four. The "cheapest" platform flips depending on what you sell.
- Growth past a cap. systeme.io's Startup covers 5,000 contacts. At 4,500 free plus 500 paid you are at the ceiling, and Webinar at $47 is the next step — still under beehiiv Lite.
The four costs people forget
- Payment processing. Typically 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction on Stripe. On 500 separate $10 charges that is about $300 a month — larger than any platform fee in this article. It is the same everywhere, and it is the biggest line.
- Refunds and churn. A paid newsletter at 5% monthly churn replaces its entire paid base every 20 months. Budget acquisition, not just software.
- Your own time. Platform choice changes this more than price does. A tool you fight costs more than $49/month.
- Migration cost. If you start on a 10% platform and succeed, leaving later is expensive — you have trained readers on a checkout flow you do not control.
A decision rule that holds up
- Charging readers within a year, and past ~100 paying: a 0% platform. beehiiv if publishing is the product; systeme.io if you also sell courses and want the cheapest possible total.
- Not charging readers: the take rate is irrelevant. Choose on free-tier headroom — Kit's 10,000 subscribers — or on automation availability, which points to MailerLite's free plan.
- Unsure whether anyone will pay: stay free. Publishing for six months before charging is normal, and every platform here has a free tier you can start on today.
What we cannot verify
Subscription prices and stated fee structures come from vendor pricing pages, verified October 23, 2026, and we re-check quarterly. The revenue scenario is arithmetic on those figures, not a measurement of any real publication. Our hands-on testing cycle is in progress — we have not run a live paid newsletter and measured actual platform fees and processor fees against projections, so the fee lines above are as displayed by the vendors rather than as observed by us. Those measurements will replace the estimates when the testing window closes, per our How We Test process.