| Subscribers | Convertkit | Beehiiv |
| 2,500 | $49 per month (Creator Plan) $79 per month (Creator Pro Plan) | Free |
| 10,000 | $119 per month (Creator Plan) $167 per month (Creator Pro Plan) | $49 per month |
| 25,000 | $199 per month (Creator Plan) $279 per month (Creator Pro Plan) | $99 per month |
Do you need exact pricing? Check our Calculator to find the cheapest email marketing software for you.
| ConvertKit | Beehiiv | |
| Ease of Use | With ConvertKit, the interface is less user-friendly, and it can be challenging to find the features you need | In Beehiiv, there’s an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate |
| Pricing | ConvertKit can be expensive, with pricing plans that are not as flexible | In Beehiiv, you’ll only pay for the number of subscribers you have, and there are no hidden fees or contracts. |
| Customizable Templates | ConvertKit’s templates are limited, which can make it difficult to create a unique newsletter. | With Beehiiv, you have access to a wide variety of customizable templates, making it easy to create a newsletter that matches your brand. |
| Advance Segmentation | ConvertKit’s segmentation features are not as advanced. | Beehiiv’s advanced segmentation features allow you to target specific groups of subscribers based on their interests, behavior, and demographics. |
| Read Full Review | ConvertKit Review: The marketing Platform for Creators | Beehiiv Review: A Newsletter Platform from Industry Experts |
I tested ConvertKit, Beehiiv and Ghost for a month each, I looked for conversion rates from Twitter, deliverability/open rates, and just overall quality of life. My goal was to move from WordPress. ConvertKit pages and forms performed well, this was plugging my subscribe page on my Twitter profile and posts, and in-line forms on WordPress.
I had good deliverability/open rates on my broadcasts, automations and sequences for the time.
My issue was wanting to have in-built tools that will subscriber-gate my content on my website, and that took too much effort with ConvertKit x WordPress. So I found out about Beehiiv and Ghost, and decided to try both. To make the tests as fair as possible, I ran both for approximately a month. I also scheduled the same exact content on Twitter over 2 months as to get the same amount of visits to each site (or as closely as possible). Both were equally easy to set up, both have great user/admin dashboards, I’d say Beehiiv has more tools that actually help creators, but generally, both are great platforms off the bat. I found out that I couldn’t create automations/sequences on Ghost which was instantly an issue. My results with Beehiiv emails has been on par with ConvertKit, emails get delivered and opened.
This was not the case with Ghost, as you can see below, I was getting 9% open rates compared to 40% from Beehiiv. This test was made by sending the same amount of emails, same/A/B titles and content, and were long enough apart such that users didn’t receive the same email twice within the same week for example.
I emailed them and asked for help, and their response was literally “tell us who didn’t receive your email”.. I responded with screenshots of emails in junk folders and never heard from them again. This was already a big issue for me, I thought it’d probably resolve over time, but it didn’t. My goal was to gate my web content to subscribers only, this is what both platforms claim is their specialty. In terms of conversion rate, over 1,000 clicks, Beehiiv converted 229 visitors into subscribers, where Ghost only converted 29. I couldn’t pin exactly why this is the case because both pages were identical, but I have 2 theories. 1. Beehiivs form is much friendlier, it asks for your email and immediately unlocks the content. While this could have contributed to more conversions, it could also increase spam sign ups, which has not been the case for me (so far). When you subscribe and come back, the login process is simple and works, unlike Ghost. 2. Ghosts subscribe process was broken. For example, you’d go to my article, and instead of a form where you enter your email, it has a “create an account” button, which takes you to a separate page that asks for your email. You enter your email and get a confirmation email in your junk folder, so you never sign up 🙂 The 30 people that fished the email out of their junk folders were unable to sign in, because the sign in link sent them into an infinite loop where it would say “invalid link” – even though the user was signed in.. I asked Ghost to help with this, but they said since I was using a custom theme, they wouldn’t intervene, even though this sign-up function was broken without the premium theme. This was a conversion killer for me, an actual nail in the coffin. This is where Beehiiv passes with a breeze. They provide visitors with a simple sign up & login experience that doesn’t bug/ruin experience. Their content locking systems are friendly for both users and admins, controls are super simple. Their emails get delivered, and sequences/automations can be made. Their admin tools/dashboard has all the necessary features you need to run a newsletter and gated community. They also have recommend/boost features which are great for growth. Another contrast from Ghost is how responsive they are as a platform. The owners are experienced newsletter industry people and have really put in a lot of work to address lots of issues newsletter/community owners face. It’s this proactive approach that makes me trust them enough to use for my long term build. Ghost has been around for a decade and has many unanswered issues on the internet. Beehiiv is only a few years old, but has a massive community of people willing and ready to help, it’s almost like WordPress in that aspect. I wrote a much more detailed post about this a while ago, but will be updating the information to reflect what I wrote now. If anything, I highly recommend you try Beehiiv by using their 14 day free trial to do your own experiment, I think you’ll come to the same conclusion )