What would your newsletter actually cost on each platform?
Substack takes 10% forever. beehiiv charges a flat fee. Ghost charges by list size. The cheapest choice depends entirely on your numbers — so put yours in. Pricing for 4 platforms, read from their own pricing pages, last checked 2026-06-10.
Gross revenue at these numbers: $2,500/month · At 5,000 subscribers and $10/month, Substack stops being the cheap option above $410/month in revenue (41 paid subscribers).
| Platform | Plan | Platform fee | Revenue cut | Card processing | Total cost / mo | You keep | Effective fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| beehiivpartially verified | Scale (annual billing) | $43.08 | $0 | $147.50 | $190.58 | $2,309.42 | 7.62% |
| Ghost (Pro)partially verified | Business (annual billing) | $199 | $0 | $147.50 | $346.50 | $2,153.50 | 13.86% |
| Substackverified | Substack | $0 | $250 | $165 | $415 | $2,085 | 16.6% |
| Kitpartially verified | No published tier fits this list size (custom pricing only) | ||||||
Card processing assumes every paid subscriber bills monthly (annual billing reduces per-transaction fees). Platform fees use the cheaper annual-billed rate where one exists.
beehiiv: PARTIAL DATA: Scale/Max prices were read at the pricing page's default list-size; beehiiv has historically scaled plan price with subscriber count via a slider. Scraper must capture price-by-subscriber-count brackets before we publish cost claims above ~2,500 subs.
Ghost (Pro): PARTIAL DATA: only yearly-billed prices were readable; monthly-billing prices and member-count slider brackets (prices rise with member count) need the scraper.
Platform fee profiles
Every tier, take rate, and processing fee — each number linked to its source.
How we verify
Data is read from the platforms' own pricing pages and re-checked on a schedule. No number appears here without a source.
The full calculator
Compare total monthly cost, effective fee percentage, and the revenue point where flat fees beat revenue shares.