Run all three up to 10,000 subscribers and the spread is real money: beehiiv costs about $49 a month, Mailchimp roughly $100, and Kit around $119 — more than double beehiiv for what's nominally the same job, sending email to the same-sized list.
| Subscribers | beehiiv | Kit | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | up to 2,500 | up to 10,000 (Kit) | up to 250 contacts |
| 1,000 | free (Launch) | ~$25/mo (Creator) | ~$13/mo |
| 10,000 | ~$49/mo | ~$119/mo | ~$100/mo |
| 50,000 | scales up (Scale/Max) | scales up | scales up sharply |
Kit's number looks worse than it used to specifically because the company raised prices about 34% this year, around the same time it rebranded from ConvertKit — a name change and a price increase landing together tends to draw complaints, and this one did. Mailchimp made its own quieter move, cutting the free plan down to just 250 contacts, which pushes small senders into a paid plan far sooner than it used to. beehiiv, by contrast, kept its pricing aggressive and spent the year expanding its ad network and monetization tooling instead of raising the subscription price.
That monetization question is actually the more interesting difference between the three, and it doesn't show up on a pricing page at all. beehiiv lets you keep 100% of subscription and digital-product revenue — only your Stripe processing fees come off the top. Kit takes a 0.6% cut on commerce and, more significantly, 23.5% of anything earned through its paid-recommendation network. Mailchimp doesn't have a native paid-subscription monetization feature at all — it was never built to be the thing you charge readers through, only the thing you email them with.
Which makes the real choice less about subscriber-count pricing and more about what kind of publication you're running. beehiiv is built for creators and media brands who want to grow a newsletter and keep what it earns — that revenue-share term is arguably worth more than the lower base price. Kit's strength is elsewhere: automation and commerce tooling aimed at creators selling courses and digital products, where the 23.5% recommendation cut is a cost of a feature you're actually using, not just a tax. Mailchimp makes the most sense for e-commerce teams that want email, SMS and product retargeting bundled with a store they already run through it — the newsletter is secondary to the commerce platform, not the point.
Starting something new today, beehiiv is the easiest recommendation — the free tier is genuinely usable and it stays the cheapest option as the list grows. Selling courses or digital products specifically, Kit's tooling is worth its higher price. Running an online store already, Mailchimp's bundling probably beats adding a fourth separate tool.