Both Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and Beehiiv will help you make money from an email list — but they bet on completely different business models. Pick the wrong one and you’ll be fighting your tool instead of earning. Here’s the clean way to decide.

The 30-second answer

• Your newsletter is the product (paid subscriptions, sponsorships, ad revenue) → Beehiiv. 0% subscription take rate, built-in ad network, discovery, referrals.
• Your newsletter is a funnel for your own products (courses, downloads, coaching) → Kit. Best-in-class automation, tagging, and a commerce store.
• You’re not sure yet but want to grow first → start on Beehiiv for growth tools; move to or add Kit only when you launch products.

The core difference in one line

Beehiiv monetizes the publication. Kit monetizes your products.

Everything else follows from that. Beehiiv is built to grow a newsletter and earn from the newsletter. Kit is built to turn an audience into customers for things you sell.

Side-by-side

	Beehiiv	Kit (ConvertKit)
Built for	Growing & monetizing the newsletter	Selling your products to an audience
Paid subscriptions	✅ 0% take rate	✅ via integrations
Built-in ad network	✅ Boosts / sponsorships	❌
Discovery / referral growth	✅ Strong	⚠️ Limited
Automation & sequences	✅ Good	✅ Best-in-class
Tagging & segmentation	✅ Good	✅ Deep
Digital product store	❌	✅ Kit Commerce
Free plan	✅ up to 2,500 subs	✅ up to ~10,000 subs (limited features)
Best for	Publishers, paid newsletters	Course creators, coaches, sellers

(Feature and plan details as published by each vendor, June 2026. Confirm current numbers before committing.)

Where Beehiiv wins for monetization

0% on subscriptions + a real ad network. If readers pay for your newsletter, Beehiiv lets you keep all of it (minus Stripe), and its native ad marketplace (Boosts) earns you sponsorship money even at mid-size scale — automatically, without selling ads yourself. That’s two income streams baked into the platform. Kit has no equivalent ad network.

Growth that compounds revenue. Beehiiv’s referral program and recommendation network grow the list that you then monetize. More subscribers → more subscription and ad revenue. It’s a growth-and-earn flywheel aimed squarely at publishers.

Verdict: if the newsletter itself is the business, Beehiiv’s monetization is purpose-built for you. (See the full Beehiiv vs Substack paid-newsletter breakdown for the subscription side.)

Where Kit wins for monetization

Selling your own products. This is Kit’s home turf. If you sell courses, ebooks, templates, or coaching, Kit’s deep tagging, behavior-based automations, and built-in commerce store turn subscribers into buyers far better than a newsletter-first tool. You can tag someone who clicked a course link, drop them into a targeted sequence, and sell — all in one platform.

Automation depth. Kit’s visual automations and segmentation are the best in this comparison. For a creator running launches, evergreen funnels, and segmented offers, that depth directly converts to sales.

A bigger free tier to start. Kit’s free plan supports a larger subscriber count (with limited features), which suits creators building an audience before they launch products.

Verdict: if your money comes from products you sell to the list — not from the list itself — Kit is the stronger monetization engine.

How to choose (the honest rule)

Ask one question: What do people pay you for?

• They pay for the newsletter (subscriptions, and you earn from ads/sponsors) → Beehiiv.
• They pay for your products (courses, downloads, coaching) and the newsletter brings them in → Kit.
• Both, eventually? Start on Beehiiv to grow the audience with its discovery and referral tools, then add Kit’s commerce when you actually launch a product — not before.

Don’t run both from day one to “cover your bases.” Two lists means double the cost, sync friction, and deliverability risk. Pick the platform that matches your primary income source and commit.

Bottom line

Kit and Beehiiv aren’t really competitors — they’re answers to different questions. Newsletter-as-the-product → Beehiiv. Newsletter-as-a-funnel-for-your-products → Kit. Match the tool to where your money comes from and you’ll monetize faster on either one.

Last updated June 2026. Pricing, plans, and take rates change; confirm current details on each vendor’s site before deciding.

---

Disclosure: some links above are affiliate links. If you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend tools we’d use ourselves.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kit or Beehiiv better for making money from a newsletter?

It depends on how you monetize. Beehiiv is better if your income comes from the newsletter itself — paid subscriptions and its built-in ad network (Boosts), with a 0% take rate on subscriptions. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is better if you sell your own products — courses, digital downloads, coaching — because it's built as a creator commerce and automation platform with strong tagging, sequences, and a built-in store. Newsletter-as-the-product → Beehiiv. Newsletter-as-a-funnel-for-your-products → Kit.

What is the difference between Kit and Beehiiv?

Beehiiv is a newsletter-first platform optimized for growing and monetizing the publication itself: discovery network, referral program, native ad marketplace, and paid subscriptions. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is a creator-marketing platform optimized for selling products to an audience: advanced automation, deep tagging and segmentation, landing pages, and a commerce store for digital goods. Both send great email — the difference is what they're built to help you sell.

Does Kit or Beehiiv take a cut of your revenue?

Beehiiv takes 0% of paid newsletter subscription revenue — you pay a flat monthly fee and keep the rest (minus Stripe processing). Kit charges a flat monthly fee based on subscriber count and, for digital product sales through Kit Commerce, takes a small transaction fee. Neither takes the 10% that Substack does. For pure paid-subscription newsletters, Beehiiv's 0% subscription take rate is the cleaner model; for product sales, compare Kit Commerce's transaction fee to whatever checkout you'd otherwise use.

Can I use Kit and Beehiiv together?

Some creators do, but it's usually unnecessary and adds cost and complexity. Beehiiv can host the public newsletter and its monetization, while Kit handles product sales automations — but maintaining two lists risks deliverability and sync headaches. For most creators, pick the one that matches your primary income source: Beehiiv if the newsletter is the product, Kit if your products are, and run everything from that single platform.

How this guide was researched

This guide synthesizes official vendor documentation, pricing pages, and changelogs; independent user reviews aggregated from G2, Trustpilot, Capterra, and product subreddits; and public technical benchmarks where they exist. Where we use a tool ourselves, we say so explicitly. We do not claim hands-on testing of every tool we cover.

AI assists our drafting and source synthesis; a human editor reviews every published post for accuracy and edits out generic claims. Found an error or stale price? Email [email protected]. More about our methodology.