beehiiv vs MailCheap: which costs less, and what do you give up?

Short answer: if you send a newsletter once a week or less, MailCheap costs a fraction of beehiiv at almost every list size, because it charges for emails sent rather than subscribers stored. beehiiv costs more, but it is a bigger growth and monetization platform. It has an ad network, a referral program, recommendations and paid subscriptions, and it has a free plan and a free trial. Which one is “better” depends on whether you need those extras.

Two different pricing models

beehiiv charges by subscriber count. You choose a plan (Free, Lite or Pro) and a tier that covers your list, and you can send as many emails as you like. Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers with beehiiv branding. Lite starts at $59 (Lite) a month for up to 1,000 subscribers and goes up to 100,000. Pro adds branding removal and goes up to 250,000 on the public price list. Paying yearly cuts the monthly price by up to 20%.

MailCheap (affiliate link) charges by emails sent per month. Its six plans run from Starter (20,000 emails, $19 a month) to Ultra (5,000,000 emails, $799 a month). Every feature is on every plan, and yearly billing gives two months free. Subscribers you’re not emailing cost nothing. MailCheap doesn’t count unconfirmed, unsubscribed or bounced contacts as subscribers. Each month’s allowance includes every email it sends: issues, tests, welcome and confirmation emails.

To compare the two, multiply your list size by how often you send. A 5,000-person list that gets a weekly issue needs about 20,000 sends a month, which is exactly MailCheap’s Starter allowance. In practice you would want a little headroom for tests and welcome emails.

Cost at common list sizes

Monthly billing, four emails a month (roughly weekly), cheapest paid plan that fits on each platform:

The gap widens as the list grows. beehiiv’s price rises with every subscriber tier. MailCheap’s price only rises when your total sends cross the next allowance. At 50,000 subscribers sending weekly, the difference is $79 (Pro) against $299 (Lite) a month.

On yearly billing both get cheaper. beehiiv Lite at 10,000 subscribers drops to $119 (Lite) a month, and MailCheap Growth to $32.50 (Growth) a month. Use the newsletter cost calculator to try your own numbers.

When beehiiv is cheaper

Per-email pricing rewards people who send occasionally and penalises people who send a lot. Daily newsletters are where beehiiv’s unlimited sending pays off:

At daily frequency, beehiiv overtakes MailCheap at around 10,000 subscribers. At 25,000 daily readers, MailCheap needs 750,000 sends a month, which means the Max plan at $349 (Max). beehiiv Lite is $199 (Lite). At two emails a week (eight a month), MailCheap is still the cheaper of the two at every size up to 100,000.

There are two more cases where beehiiv wins on price:

• You’re under 2,500 subscribers and fine with branding. beehiiv Free costs nothing. MailCheap has no free plan.
• You want to test before paying. beehiiv offers a free trial of Lite and Pro without a credit card. MailCheap has no free trial and does not refund partial months.

Features: what each one does well

“Not listed” means we did not find the feature on MailCheap’s pricing or home page on the check date. It does not prove the feature can never exist; MailCheap ships changes and keeps a public changelog. Check before you rely on one.

Where beehiiv is stronger

beehiiv is built around growing and monetising a newsletter. The ad network matches newsletters with sponsors. The referral program rewards readers for bringing in new subscribers. Recommendations let newsletters cross-promote each other. Paid subscriptions carry no beehiiv fee on paid plans, so you only pay Stripe’s processing fee. If any of these is part of your business model, its value can outweigh the price difference. MailCheap’s own comparison page says as much: beehiiv “has more ways to grow and earn.”

Where MailCheap is stronger

MailCheap is narrower and cheaper. It does the core job of writing, scheduling and delivering a newsletter from your own domain, with a website and signup forms, and charges a flat price per block of sends. The whole feature set is on every plan, so there is no “upgrade to remove branding” step. It is built to be driven by AI agents through an API and MCP server. MailCheap describes itself as open source, so you can read the code or self-host it. It also turns list cleanup on by default: readers who stop opening get one last email and then stop receiving issues, which protects deliverability and your send allowance.

Downsides to weigh

MailCheap

• No free trial and no partial refunds. You pay from day one and can cancel at the end of the period.
• A newer, smaller product. It has a shorter track record than beehiiv and a smaller ecosystem of integrations and guides.
• Fewer growth and monetisation tools. No ad network, referral program or recommendations appeared in its feature list, and we did not find native paid subscriptions.
• Hard monthly cap. If you use up your allowance, new sends wait until you upgrade or the next month starts, and welcome emails pause too. Tests and confirmation emails count.

beehiiv

• Price grows with your list, not your sending. You pay for inactive subscribers until you remove them.
• Branding stays on Lite. Removing beehiiv branding needs Pro, which costs considerably more at every tier.
• Lite stops at 100,000 subscribers. Above that, the public price list continues on Pro only.

Who should pick which

A common middle path is to start on beehiiv’s free plan, then compare again once you pass 2,500 subscribers. That’s when beehiiv’s paid tiers and MailCheap’s Starter plan become the real choice.

See MailCheap pricing (affiliate link)   See beehiiv pricing