beehiiv vs SmartMessage

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.

SmartMessage is an omnichannel marketing platform built in Istanbul. Oğuz Küçükbarak and Emin Altın founded the company in 2005, and 212 VC invested in 2019. It sends email, SMS, mobile push, WhatsApp and Telegram messages from one place, mostly for large consumer brands and financial institutions in Türkiye, the Gulf and Eastern Europe.

The platform has five products: Campaign Manager for omnichannel campaigns, Audience Manager for segmentation and communication preferences, Journey Manager for automated customer journeys, Conversation Manager for AI chatbots, and OTP Manager for one-time passwords. Add-on modules include Michelangelo AI (generative content in a saved brand voice plus no-code chatbots), a Dynamics 365 add-on, WhatsApp Business marketing and an İYS module that syncs consent with Türkiye's commercial message registry. Pricing is quote-based, with no self-serve tier.

It fits banks, insurers, retailers and telcos that send high volumes on several channels and need local compliance. Insider offers a broader CDP and personalization suite at a higher price; Related Digital (Euromessage) is the other long-standing Turkish email player; İleti Merkezi is a simpler, self-serve SMS option for smaller teams.

The company says it serves about 500 customers in 20 countries, including İş Bankası, Migros, A101, Ford, Koç Holding and Petrol Ofisi. Release 2.11 added Telegram, geofenced push and email OTP with SMS or push fallback.