Substack rolled out two material product updates in April that change the platform comparison. The video tab in the iOS and Android apps now supports up to 90-minute uploads, the web reader added a YouTube-style autoplay feed, and creator analytics now break out video watch time alongside open and click rates. The bigger update came on April 22 when Substack opened its programmatic ad partnership with Vox Media's ad sales team for newsletters with 10,000 or more paid subscribers, with revenue splits at 70 percent to the writer and 30 percent to the platform. Beehiiv, the closest competitor, has had a built-in ad network since 2023 and added its own video player in March of this year.
The platform pick now comes down to one structural question. Substack is an audience-first brand. Readers discover writers through Substack Notes, the recommendation feed, and the home page algorithm, with roughly 41 percent of new subscriptions in 2025 coming from in-platform discovery rather than the writer's external traffic. Beehiiv is a list-first business platform. Readers come to Beehiiv newsletters because the writer brought them, with roughly 87 percent of subscriptions originating from the writer's owned channels. That difference flows downstream to monetization economics and exit value.
For pure cost comparison, Beehiiv has the cleaner pricing. The Launch tier is free up to 2,500 subscribers. The Scale tier at $49 per month covers up to 10,000 subscribers and includes the ad network, automations, and custom domains. The Max tier at $99 per month adds team members, advanced segmentation, and priority support. Substack remains free to publish, taking a flat 10 percent of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe fees. For a writer with 5,000 free subscribers and no paid offering, Beehiiv costs $49 per month, Substack costs zero. For a writer with 1,000 paid subscribers at $5 per month, the math reverses sharply: Beehiiv costs $49 per month, Substack takes $500 plus fees.
The audience-discovery effect is harder to quantify but real. A 2025 study by The Tilt of 8,400 newsletter writers found that the median Substack writer's first 1,000 subscribers came from a mix of 47 percent in-platform discovery, 28 percent social media, 18 percent owned web traffic, and 7 percent referrals. The median Beehiiv writer's first 1,000 came from 64 percent owned channels, 24 percent paid acquisition, 8 percent referrals, and 4 percent platform discovery. Substack writers tended to grow faster in the first 90 days and slower thereafter; Beehiiv writers tended to grow more linearly with paid acquisition spend.
Monetization paths differ in important ways. Substack writers monetize primarily through paid subscriptions, with the new ad network adding incremental revenue at the 10K-subscriber threshold. Beehiiv writers monetize through a wider mix: paid subscriptions, the ad network at any subscriber level, sponsorships, premium tiers, and a recently-launched payments product for products and courses. Beehiiv's average revenue per active subscriber in 2025 was $14.20 per year for newsletters of 5,000 to 50,000 subscribers, with most of that coming from ads and sponsorships. Substack's equivalent number was $48.40 per active subscriber, with most coming from paid subscriptions.
Portability is the conservative answer most newsletter advisors recommend. Beehiiv lets writers fully export their list, automation flows, and revenue setup at any time. Substack also allows list export but the brand and audience discovery effect cannot move with you, which can feel like leaving behind a meaningful piece of the business if you grew on platform. For newsletters being built as part of a larger media business or product company, Beehiiv's portability and ad network economics tend to win the spreadsheet. For writers building a personal brand or solo media business, Substack's discovery flywheel often pulls revenue forward enough to be worth the rev-share.
For Wesley Insider's category readers, three patterns are worth knowing. Faith and lifestyle writers tend to over-index on Substack because the discovery feed amplifies devotional content sharply. Business and finance writers tend to over-index on Beehiiv because the ad network and sponsorship inventory clear at higher CPMs. Tech and AI writers split roughly evenly. The hybrid model, where a writer publishes the same content on Substack and a personal Beehiiv list, is now used by roughly 12 percent of paid newsletter writers per the Beehiiv 2025 platform survey, up from 4 percent two years earlier.
What to watch in the next 90 days. Substack is expected to roll out a podcast video product to all writers in June, after the limited beta currently with 1,200 writers. Beehiiv is expected to launch a creator-as-a-service white-label option in July targeting agencies and media companies, which would let larger publishers run individual newsletters on the Beehiiv backend without the public Beehiiv branding. And the FTC's expected guidance on creator-platform revenue disclosures, scheduled for July 17, will affect how both platforms report ad revenue to writers and to the IRS. The platform pick is still ultimately about your business model, not the feature list.