Beehiiv vs Substack – What’s The Difference?

Beehiiv and Substack are two popular newsletter platforms that offer similar features and functionality.

However, there are several key differences between the two that can impact your decision of which platform to choose.

In this article, we will evaluate them around their features, SEO capabilities, pricing, integrations, automation, data analytics, and more.

This will help you decide which is the better platform for your needs.

Overview of Beehiiv

Beehiiv is an all-in-one newsletter platform designed for creating, designing, publishing, and monetizing email newsletters.

It offers a user-friendly interface with rich formatting capabilities, advanced analytics for optimizing content, and built-in monetization options like premium subscriptions, affiliate marketing, and promotions.

Beehiiv also provides SEO-optimized websites for publishing newsletters, automation features for saving time, and integrations with various tools and services.

The platform is suitable for both individual creators and teams, offering customization options, referral programs, and in-depth analytics to help users grow their audience and revenue.

Beehiiv offers a generous free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and competitively priced paid plans, making it a competitive solution for

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Overview of Substack

Substack is an online platform that allows writers, journalists, and other content creators to publish newsletters and establish a subscription-based audience.

It provides tools for authors to create and distribute their newsletters, manage subscriptions, and monetize content through paid subscriptions, with Substack taking a 10% fee on subscription revenue.

Substack has become popular among independent creators looking to build direct relationships with their audience, offering features like custom branding, analytics, and the ability to make content free or paid.

The platform has attracted a range of writers, from individual bloggers to high-profile journalists, and has seen significant growth in recent years as traditional media outlets have declined.

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How to Get Discovered on Beehiiv vs Substack?

Discoverability is a crucial factor when choosing a newsletter platform.

Discoverability

• Substack operates on a newsfeed model, similar to Medium, With Substack’s newsfeed model, users can follow creators and have their content populate their feed. This approach emphasizes community and allows for easy content discovery within the platform. However, it may limit your reach beyond the Substack community.
• Beehiiv does not offer a newsfeed; instead, it relies on search engine optimization (SEO) to help you get discovered. It provides more SEO options to help you increase your visibility across search engines. You can write blog posts directly in Beehiiv, optimizing them for specific keywords, and improve your chances of appearing in search results outside of the platform. This approach can help you attract a wider audience and grow your subscriber base.

Growing Your List

• Substack’s newsfeed model may give you immediate exposure to a targeted audience within the platform.
• Beehiiv’s SEO focus allows for the potential of a broader reach and organic growth over time.

User Engagement

• Substack provides a straightforward platform with a focus on content creation and exposure through the platform’s recommendations.
• Beehiiv, on the other hand, offers tools for understanding and tracking user behavior, allowing you to optimize your strategy based on data-driven insights.

If you prefer a platform that emphasizes community and simplicity while offering exposure within the platform, Substack may be the right choice for you.

However, if you want the flexibility to leverage SEO and access comprehensive analytics to understand and track your subscribers, Beehiiv may better suit your needs.

Design & Customization

Take a look at how good they are when it comes to design & customization.

Customization Options

• Beehiiv: Offers extensive newsletter customization options, allowing modification of almost every aspect without coding. It also provides limited website customization options, with only two default layouts available, and supports custom domains on paid plans.
• Substack: Has limited customization options, with all pages having a similar appearance. It integrates with popular platforms like Twitter and Facebook but lacks an API for other services.

Editor Layout

• Beehiiv: Provides a modern editor layout that is clean and user-friendly, allowing creators to focus on writing without distractions.
• Substack: Offers a minimalist editor ideal for beginners.

Website Customization

• Beehiiv: Offers limited website customization options, with only two default layouts available. However, it supports custom domains on paid plans.
• Substack: Provides very limited website customization options, with only three layout options available. It also lacks the ability to buy or create custom themes.

We recommend Beehiiv to those seeking extensive customization options, while Substack is better suited for creators valuing a minimalist design approach.

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Growth & Analytics

Growth

• Beehiiv: Offers advanced growth features, including a recommendation network, referral program, and “Boosts” to recommend other newsletters and get paid.
• Substack: Has more limited growth capabilities, with the main focus being on the recommendation feature that allows writers to endorse each other’s newsletters.

Analytics

• Beehiiv offers a comprehensive analytics dashboard that provides a deeper understanding of audience engagement patterns. With this data, you can identify which channels are most effective in gaining subscribers and refine your marketing efforts. Additionally, Beehiiv provides advanced segmentation and analytics features in its paid versions, allowing for in-depth analysis and optimization.
• Substack focuses on simplicity by providing essential analytics data in its dashboard. This includes read rates and subscription figures, giving you a clear snapshot of your newsletter’s performance. While the analytics are more straightforward compared to Beehiiv, they still provide valuable insights to help you track the success of your content.

Scalability

• Beehiiv: Is designed to scale with growing newsletter audiences, handling fast-growing subscriber lists without additional costs.
• Substack: While scalable to an extent, its free plan may become limiting as a newsletter grows, potentially requiring a paid subscription to accommodate larger audiences.

To sum up, Beehiiv is the clear winner when it comes to growth-focused features and advanced analytics, making it a better choice for creators and businesses looking to scale their newsletter businesses.

Substack, on the other hand, is more focused on simplicity and the writing experience, with more limited growth and analytics capabilities.

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SEO Capabilities

When it comes to SEO options, Beehiiv outperforms Substack, making it an ideal choice for creators who prioritize search engine visibility and discoverability.

Beehiiv takes a SEO-centric approach, offering a range of features that can enhance your content’s performance on search engines.

Canonical URLs

• Beehiiv has the ability to set canonical URLs that enable search engines to recognize the original source of content, avoiding duplicate content penalties and improving the site’s overall SEO ranking.
• Substack does not offer this feature.

Content Optimization

• Beehiiv allows you to optimize your content specifically for search engines. By utilizing SEO best practices such as keyword optimization, meta tags, and title tags, you can improve your content’s visibility and increase organic traffic to your newsletter.
• Substack lacks these SEO options, which can limit your content’s reach.

Integrations

• Beehiiv offers the benefits of its API and Zapier integration, which allows for seamless communication with other tools and software. This integration capability can further enhance your SEO efforts by integrating with popular email marketing services, social media platforms, and CRMs, enabling you to streamline your workflow and optimize your content distribution.
• Substack has limited integration options, primarily focusing on social media sharing and email delivery providers. While this can be sufficient for some creators, it may restrict your ability to fully leverage SEO opportunities and integrate with the tools you prefer.

Beehiiv’s SEO-centric approach, extensive SEO options, and integration capabilities make it the platform of choice for creators who want to maximize their SEO efforts and enhance their content’s discoverability.

By leveraging Beehiiv’s advanced SEO features, you can improve your search engine rankings, attract a wider audience, and ultimately grow your newsletter.

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Monetization & Pricing

When it comes to monetization, Substack and Beehiiv take slightly different approaches.

Monetization

• Beehiiv: Offers more flexible monetization options, including paid subscriptions, one-time payments, and donations. It does not take any platform fees, allowing creators to keep 100% of their subscription revenue
• Substack: Primarily focuses on paid subscriptions, taking a 10% fee on all subscription revenue.

Pricing & Plans

• Beehiiv: Offers both free and paid plans. While the free plan accommodates up to 2,500 subscribers, paid plans starting at $39 per month. The paid plans unlock more advanced monetization features.
• Substack: Provides a free plan with no limits on subscribers, but takes a 10% fee on paid subscriptions.

As you can see, Beehiiv offers more flexibility and control over monetization, allowing creators to keep 100% of their subscription revenue.

However, Substack’s free plan with no subscriber limits may be more appealing for those just starting out or not ready to invest in a paid plan.

The choice ultimately depends on the creator’s monetization goals and preferences – whether they prioritize maximum revenue retention or simplicity and a free starting point.

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Conclusion

Substack is renowned as a top choice for journalists and industry professionals, offering a straightforward platform for easily monetizing content.

It simplifies the process of setting up paid subscriptions with its built-in payment system and provides a clean and reader-friendly interface.

On the other hand, Beehiiv takes a different approach by emphasizing a community-centric environment and fostering interactive discussions among subscribers.

It offers customization options for newsletters and supports multi-tier subscriptions, allowing creators to provide varying levels of access to their content.

Now that you know what each of these offers, pick the one that suits you better.