Substack costs nothing until you charge your readers, and then it takes 10% of every payment, for as long as you publish. Beehiiv charges a set monthly fee in US dollars once you pass 2,500 subscribers or want to charge anyone at all, and takes nothing from what readers pay you. From what each company publishes today, the choice between Beehiiv and Substack is whether you pay a share of your subscription income forever, or a fixed bill that rises with the size of your list.
| The decision row | Substack | Beehiiv |
|---|---|---|
| Software | $0 at any list size | $0 up to 2,500 subscribers. Lite, the plan that lets you charge readers, is USD $59 a month at 1,000 subscribers (about A$85), or USD $49 paid yearly (about A$70), rising with your list |
| Cut of paid subscriptions | 10% of each transaction | 0% on the Lite and Pro plans; paid subscriptions are not available on the free plan |
| Card payments | Stripe's fees, on your own Stripe account | Stripe's fees, on your own Stripe account |
| Australian dollars | Yes, readers in Australia see AUD prices | Yes, AUD is one of nine currencies you can charge in |
| Your own domain | USD $50 one-off, about A$72 | Included on every plan |
Prices as published on each company's own pricing page and help centre, checked again on 9 October 2026, worked out in the sections below. Beehiiv's prices are converted at the Reserve Bank's rate for 8 October 2026, 1 AUD to 0.6956 USD, and rounded to the dollar.
Beehiiv vs Substack: which one is cheaper?
Substack, until your readers are paying you about A$850 a month. After that, Beehiiv.
The sum is short. Substack's cut is 10% of what your paid readers pay, in whatever currency they pay it. Beehiiv's bill is a set figure in US dollars that depends on how many subscribers you hold, paying or not. At 1,000 subscribers Beehiiv's Lite plan is USD $59 a month, about A$85, or USD $49 a month if you pay the year up front, about A$70. So if your paid readers bring in A$300 a month, Substack takes A$30 and Beehiiv would have cost you about A$85. If they bring in A$2,000 a month, Substack takes A$200 every month and Beehiiv still costs about A$85.
That crossover point moves as your list grows, because Beehiiv's bill rises with it too. Card fees are the same on both, so leave them out: the crossover sits near A$850 a month of subscription income at 1,000 subscribers. Substack's share is the cheaper bill under that figure. Cross it and the share costs more than the bill, and the gap grows with every paying reader you add. The exchange rate moves the crossover too, so redo it with the rate on the day.
| Paid readers each month | Substack keeps | Beehiiv costs |
|---|---|---|
| 30 readers at A$10, 1,000 on the list | A$30 | About A$85 a month (USD $59), or A$70 paid yearly |
| 100 readers at A$10, 1,000 on the list | A$100 | About A$85 a month (USD $59), or A$70 paid yearly |
Illustrative arithmetic from each company's published prices, checked again on 9 October 2026, Beehiiv converted at the Reserve Bank's rate for 8 October 2026. Beehiiv's bill rises with your list, so look up your own size on its pricing page. Stripe's card fees apply on both and are left out. Your prices and your free-to-paid ratio move every number, so redo it with your own.
How much does Substack take from paid subscriptions?
Substack keeps 10% of every payment, and more than that once Stripe's fees sit underneath it.
Substack's help centre says publishing is free "no matter how many subscribers you have," and that once you enable paid subscriptions it takes "10% of each transaction," with Stripe's card fee and a 0.7% recurring billing fee on top. On an A$10 monthly subscription, that is A$1 to Substack, then Stripe's 1.65% plus 30 cents on a domestic card, then the billing fee, and you keep about A$8.47. The same reader on Beehiiv pays the same Stripe fees and no platform share, so you keep about A$9.54, and you have already paid Beehiiv's monthly bill before that reader arrived.
Substack asks for nothing until you charge readers, then keeps a share of every payment they make. Beehiiv asks for its bill first, and keeps none of what your readers pay you. A newsletter that never charges pays neither of them anything, until it passes 2,500 subscribers, when Beehiiv starts charging and Substack does not.
What does Beehiiv cost in Australia?
The same as anywhere, billed in US dollars, and it rises with your list.
Beehiiv's pricing page shows dollars with no currency stated, so budget in US dollars and expect the exchange rate on your card statement. The Free plan is $0 up to 2,500 subscribers. It sends unlimited emails and gives you a website and a custom domain, and it does not let you charge readers. Lite is the plan that lets you charge readers: USD $49 a month paid yearly at 1,000 subscribers, or USD $59 paid monthly, which is about A$70 or A$85 at today's rate. The price rises in steps as your list grows, so check your own list size on Beehiiv's pricing page. Pro, which removes the Beehiiv branding and adds group subscriptions and a few other features, is USD $95 a month paid yearly at 1,000 subscribers, or USD $109 paid monthly, about A$137 or A$157. Beehiiv renamed these plans in early October 2026, so older write-ups call Free, Lite and Pro by the names Launch, Scale and Max. Dead subscribers count the same as live ones, so a list you never clean is a bill you pay every month.
Can you charge Australian readers in Australian dollars?
Yes, on both, through a Stripe account in your own name.
Substack's localised pricing shows readers in Australia a price in AUD, converted from your publication's price, with Stripe adding 2% when a currency has to be converted. Beehiiv lets you set a paid tier in AUD directly, one of nine currencies its help centre lists. Both send the money to your own Stripe account, where Stripe's Australian pricing page lists 1.65% plus 30 cents on a domestic card, the lower rate that started on 1 October 2026, with GST included in that fee.
If your business is registered for GST, the GST on what an Australian reader pays is yours to account for. Ask your accountant how it applies before you set the price, because an A$10 subscription is A$9.09 of income once GST is inside it.
Two smaller things Australians ask about. Substack charges a one-off USD $50, about A$72, to use your own domain, and even then your emails go out from a substack.com address, which its help centre says in writing. Beehiiv includes the custom domain on every plan, and the sending domain can be yours as well.
Can anything read your subscribers from outside?
On Beehiiv, yes. On Substack, no.
Beehiiv has a public connection on every plan, including the free one, that a system you own can read your subscriber list and your post statistics through. Substack has no public connection at all. You can export your list from either as a spreadsheet, so nobody is holding your readers hostage, but a spreadsheet you download by hand every Friday is not a report that reads the list itself each morning. We wrote up what goes into that report in the daily business report article, and if you want your subscriber numbers, opens and paid conversions in it beside your sales, only one of the two can feed it.
Which one grows the list?
Substack, if you are starting from nothing. Beehiiv, if you already have an audience somewhere else.
Substack's network is the reason people start there. Notes, its own feed, and the recommendations between publications send readers to newsletters that have never advertised, and that is worth more to a writer with 40 subscribers than any feature list. Beehiiv has a recommendation network too, plus a referral program that rewards readers for bringing friends and an ad network that pays you for placements, but those work on a list you already have. Nobody discovers you inside Beehiiv the way they do inside Substack.
Where to start
Count two things: how many subscribers you have, and how much your paid readers send you each month. Under about A$850 a month of subscriptions, Substack is free or close to it, and its network will find you readers. Above that line, Beehiiv is the cheaper bill, your own domain is included, and a system you own can read the list.
There is a third option, and it is the one we use. Ghost is open-source publishing software, free to run yourself on a small server from about $15 a month with no platform cut, or paid as Ghost's own hosted plan from USD $18 a month billed yearly, about A$26. We run a subscription publishing business on self-hosted Ghost. As of September 2026 it has about 5,200 members, about 650 of them paying. If you have the idea for a paid newsletter, bring it. We build it: the site, the list, the paid tiers and the emails, on a server in your name. What the paid list does once it is running, month by month, is in how free readers become paying members on our publishing business.
Whichever you pick, the newsletter still has to get written every week, and that is the part that stops. Under our Marketing element we build the list on your own domain, the welcome series in your voice, and the weekly email drafted from what happened in your business and waiting on your phone for a tap, with the subscriber numbers in your daily business report. The Engine is $3,500 one-off and includes one element of your choice, each further element is $950, and the Website + Email Build at $5,950 includes all five. Or start smaller: answer a few short questions and we will provide a free custom audit of your business.