beehiiv vs MailerLite

beehiiv is a newsletter platform founded by former Morning Brew engineers, including CEO Tyler Denk, to give independent publishers the growth tooling that helped Morning Brew scale. It handles writing, sending, hosting and monetizing a newsletter in one place, and has grown quickly since its public launch in 2022.

Every publication gets a visual editor with polls and surveys, a hosted website with SEO-friendly archives and custom domains, segmentation and analytics. The free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends. The paid Lite plan, priced by list size, unlocks the features that matter for growth: a referral program, Boosts (paid recommendations from other newsletters), the beehiiv Ad Network, paid subscriptions through Stripe, automations and A/B tests. Pro removes beehiiv branding and adds webinars and advanced analytics, and Enterprise adds dedicated IPs and SLAs.

beehiiv suits media-style newsletters, niche publications and journalists who treat the newsletter as the business. Its referral and ad network features have no real equal among email tools. It is not built for e-commerce lifecycle marketing (Klaviyo), creators selling courses and digital products (Kit), or SaaS product email (Customer.io). Substack is the main alternative for writers who value its network effects more than control over branding and monetization.

Over 2024 and 2025 beehiiv kept expanding beyond email with a richer website builder and AI writing tools, positioning itself as a full publishing platform.

MailerLite is an email marketing platform from Vilnius, Lithuania, founded in 2010. The same company also makes MailerSend for transactional email and MailerCheck for list verification. MailerLite is known for a clean interface, good deliverability and prices that stay among the lowest in its category as a list grows.

The product covers drag-and-drop, rich text and custom HTML editors, automation workflows with triggers, conditions and delays, segmentation, A/B testing, landing pages, a simple website builder, signup forms and pop-ups. Creators can sell digital products and paid newsletter subscriptions through Stripe, and e-commerce integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and others support product blocks and abandoned cart flows. An AI assistant helps with subject lines and copy. A free plan covers small lists, and paid plans scale by subscriber count, with higher tiers adding unlimited users, custom HTML, Facebook integration and more automation options.

MailerLite fits small businesses, bloggers, creators and nonprofits that want a polished tool at a fair price. New accounts go through an approval process that can delay launch, and reporting and automation are less advanced than ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo. Mailchimp has more integrations and brand recognition at a higher price, Brevo is attractive when you also need SMS and transactional email, and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is more creator-focused.