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I Ran Three Newsletters on Three Platforms for Six Months. Here’s the One I Kept.
In March last year I had 340 email subscribers and a Substack that looked like every other Substack. Plain header, one font, and a paywall button that felt like begging. I had made $87 in paid subscriptions over four months. My open rate was 22%, which Substack told me was “above average,” but it felt like shouting into a parking garage. I switched to ConvertKit in April because everyone on Twitter said the automations were incredible. They were good. I still made almost no money, and the bill was $29 a month and climbing.
In June I started a second newsletter on Beehiiv because a creator friend showed me his ad-network earnings. He was making $900 a month from a list half the size of mine. I was skeptical, which is my default setting. I moved the original newsletter to Beehiiv in July and kept the ConvertKit list running as a test. By October the Beehiiv newsletter had 1,800 subscribers, the ConvertKit one had withered to 90 because I stopped sending to it, and the Substack was a redirect page. I now pay for one newsletter platform and I know exactly why.
If you’re a Best podcast microphone solo creators creator trying to decide where to house your writing, this is not about features. Every platform sends email. The difference is whether the platform helps you make a living or just charges you rent for talking to your own readers.
What solo creators actually need from a newsletter platform
The feature lists are lies by omission. They all say “audience growth” and “monetization” and “beautiful templates.” Ignore that. What matters when you have no team and no budget is far more specific.
You need a free tier that doesn’t cap your subscriber count. If you’re starting at zero, you shouldn’t be paying $25 a month for the privilege of having 47 people read your thoughts. Some Best community platforms creators start charging at 1,000 or even 500 subscribers. That timeline arrives faster than you think.
You need a built-in referral program that doesn’t require Zapier and three hours of swearing. Word of mouth is how most solo creators grow. The platform should reward your readers for sharing, not make you build it from scratch.
You need a native ad network or tipping function so you can pay the platform bill without selling a course on day one. Monetization through the platform itself is the difference between a hobby and a side income.
You need landing pages that don’t look like a dental clinic newsletter. You will share this link on social media, your bio, and in guest posts. It needs to look like you care.
You need email deliverability that doesn’t dump you in Promotions. This is invisible until it destroys you. If your open rate drops to 8% because Gmail thinks you’re spam, the best content in the world won’t save you.
Best for monetization and growth: Beehiiv
I moved my main newsletter here in July and kept it here because Beehiiv is the only platform that treated my newsletter like a media business instead of an email list. The free plan allows up to 2,500 subscribers, which is enough to get to meaningful revenue before you pay anything. I hit that limit in late August and the $42 monthly plan was already covered by ad revenue.
What works
The ad network is built in. Once you hit 1,000 subscribers you can apply to the Beehiiv Ad Network. Brands email you with campaign offers. You approve or reject them. The money lands in your Stripe account. My first ad paid $120 for one placement. It took four minutes to insert. I’ve since run campaigns at $400 per send. That’s not life-changing money, but it’s real money that arrives without me recording a course or writing a sales page.
The referral program is native and gamified. Readers get rewards for referring subscribers. I offered access to a short PDF guide at three referrals and a 15-minute video call at ten. My subscriber growth rate doubled in the first month. On ConvertKit I tried to replicate this with a third-party tool and a Zapier connection that broke twice. Native beats duct tape every time.
The web view looks like a real publication. I picked their “Minimal” template and customized the colors in ten minutes. A reader DMed me saying the site “looked expensive.” On Substack, everyone looks identical. On ConvertKit, the landing pages are functional but forgettable. Beehiiv is the only one where the free template competes with a custom site.
The analytics are aggressive in a good way. It shows you exactly which posts drove subscriptions, which traffic sources convert, and where readers drop off. I learned that my Twitter threads drove subscribers who never opened an email, while mentions in other newsletters drove subscribers with a 65% open rate. I stopped chasing social virality and started pitching guest posts. That single insight changed my growth strategy.
What doesn’t
The email editor is basic. It’s not bad. It’s just not rich. If you want drop-in quote blocks with fancy left borders, or embeddable video with custom thumbnails, you will be disappointed. I write plain text with the occasional image. For that, it’s fine. Designers and visually focused creators will feel constrained. I know a photographer who left Beehiiv because she couldn’t get her layout right without custom CSS.
The automation workflows are primitive compared to ConvertKit. There are no visual funnels. You can’t trigger a sequence based on which link someone clicked in a previous email. If your business depends on complex tagging and behavioral segmentation, Beehiiv will frustrate you. I don’t do complex segmentation. I send one email a week to everyone. For that, it’s perfect.
Customer support is email-only and can take 24 hours. Not a dealbreaker for me, but if you need a live chat because your send is broken and you have a sponsor waiting, 24 hours is unacceptable.
Pricing jumps from free to $42 per month at 2,500 subscribers, then $84 at 5,000. The jump is steep. I wish there was a cheaper middle tier. By the time you hit 5,000, you should be making enough from ads or subscriptions to cover it. If you’re not, the platform isn’t the problem.
Non-affiliate alternative: Substack is free forever and takes a 10% cut of paid subscriptions instead of charging a monthly fee. If you plan to run a paid newsletter and you don’t care about referral programs or ad networks, Substack’s math can work in your favor. I found the lack of customization and the culture of “every newsletter looks the same” stifling, but it’s unbeatable for pure writing.
Best for audience connection and automation: ConvertKit
ConvertKit is what I used for four months and what I recommend to creators who treat their newsletter as the center of a product ecosystem. If you sell courses, templates, coaching, or ebooks, ConvertKit’s automation and tagging are worth the price. I just didn’t have products to sell yet, so I was paying for a race car to drive to the grocery store.
What works
The visual automation Best portfolio website builder freelancers is genuinely powerful. You can build entire customer journeys. Someone downloads a free guide, gets a nurture sequence, clicks a link about pricing, gets tagged “interested,” and enters a sales sequence. I built a five-email onboarding sequence in an afternoon. It sent automatically. People replied to it thinking I wrote it that morning. That’s the goal.
Landing pages are fast and conversion-optimized. Their templates are built for one job: get the email address. I A/B tested two headlines on a guide download page. One converted at 34%, the other at 48%. ConvertKit made that test trivial to set up. On Beehiiv, A/B testing landing pages doesn’t exist yet.
Deliverability is excellent. My open rates on ConvertKit were consistently 5-8% higher than on Substack with the same list size and content. I’m not an email deliverability engineer, but I’ll take 5-8% more readers opening my work. ConvertKit has a dedicated deliverability team and relationships with inbox providers that smaller platforms can’t match.
The Creator Network helps you find subscribers. You recommend other newsletters, they recommend you. It’s not a silver bullet, but I gained about 300 subscribers in two months from recommendations alone. It costs nothing extra and requires no outreach. You opt in and the algorithm matches you with similar creators.
What doesn’t
It’s expensive. The free plan caps at 1,000 subscribers. After that it’s $29 per month, then $49, then $79. If you’re not monetizing your list, that’s a subscription that quietly drains your bank account while you “build an audience.” I resented the bill every month because I wasn’t earning from the newsletter directly.
The email template options are limited and slightly dated. They work. They’re clean. They don’t excite. I never found a template that felt like “me.” I ended up using the plainest option with a custom header image, which looked fine but not special.
The learning curve is real. I spent three hours watching tutorials before I understood how tags, segments, sequences, and broadcasts interacted. If you’re a writer who wants to write and send, ConvertKit adds friction. The payoff is huge if you use the power. It’s overkill if you don’t.
Non-affiliate alternative: Ghost is an open-source platform that gives you full control, membership features, and no platform fees beyond hosting. You need some technical comfort or a willingness to read documentation. I haven’t migrated to Ghost because I like having customer support I can email, but every creator I know who uses it raves about the lack of platform lock-in.
Who shouldn’t switch platforms
If you already have 10,000 subscribers and your open rate is above 40%, switching platforms is a project that can cost you subscribers during migration. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. If you only send once a month and you don’t care about monetization yet, stay on free Substack and write. The platform is not the bottleneck. Your consistency is.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free newsletter platform for new creators?
Beehiiv’s free plan allows up to 2,500 subscribers and includes most growth features. Substack is also free forever but lacks customization and referral tools. ConvertKit is free only up to 1,000 subscribers.
Can you switch newsletter platforms without losing subscribers?
Yes. All major platforms allow CSV exports and imports. You will lose some subscribers during the move, usually 3-5%, because some email addresses bounce or people unsubscribe during the inevitable “update your preferences” confusion. Plan for that. Don’t switch during a launch.
Which platform is best for paid newsletters?
Substack takes 10% of revenue but charges no monthly fee. ConvertKit and Beehiiv charge monthly but let you keep 100% of subscription revenue minus Stripe fees. If you expect to make more than $300 per month, Beehiiv or ConvertKit will cost less than Substack’s percentage.
Does Beehiiv take a cut of ad revenue?
No. The Beehiiv Ad Network connects you with brands and you keep 100% of the negotiated rate. The only cost is your monthly platform subscription. This is the main reason I chose it over running ads manually.
Is ConvertKit worth it if you don’t sell products?
Honestly, no. If you’re not using automations, landing page funnels, or the Creator Network, you’re paying for features you don’t touch. Writers who just want to send a weekly email should start on Beehiiv or Substack.
Conclusion: the platform I kept and what I’d tell my past self
I kept Beehiiv because it paid for itself in month two and made me feel like I was running a publication rather than maintaining a list. If I could talk to myself in March, I’d say: start on Beehiiv, write for 90 days without worrying about design, and pitch your first sponsored post at 1,000 subscribers. Don’t build a funnel you don’t have traffic for. Don’t pay for automation you don’t have products to automate. Start simple, monetize early, and upgrade your tools when your revenue forces the issue.
If you run a product-based creator business already, start with ConvertKit. Its automation and tagging will earn back the monthly fee in saved time and better conversions. If you are a pure writer with no interest in ads, sponsorships, or product sales, Substack is free and fine.
I built three newsletters on three platforms so you don’t have to. Pick one, write something this week, and worry about the tech stack after you have 500 people who want to hear from you.