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Most people treat newsletters as a marketing cost. Beehiiv lets you run one as a profit centre.
I’ve spent time testing Beehiiv‘s monetization features. Here’s what actually works and what’s just there to look good on the pricing page.
What makes Beehiiv different
Beehiiv is built specifically for newsletters-as-businesses, not email marketing as an afterthought. Three features make it stand out:
- Native ad network (Boosts): Other newsletters pay to be recommended to your subscribers when they sign up. You earn $1-3 per subscriber who signs up through your recommendation. Passive income from your signup page.
- Paid subscriptions: Lock certain posts behind a paywall. One-click setup, Stripe integration, customizable pricing.
- Referral program: Built-in — subscribers share a unique link, earn rewards you define.
The Boosts program: the one you should enable immediately
This is Beehiiv‘s most underrated feature. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, they see a “you might also like” recommendation from other newsletters. If they subscribe to one, you earn a commission (set by that newsletter — usually $1.50-3).
You don’t have to do anything once it’s set up. It runs on every signup page, forever. At 100 new subscribers per month, even a 10% conversion rate on Boosts earns $15-30/month. At 1,000 new subscribers, that’s $150-300/month.
To set up: Dashboard → Monetize → Boosts → Apply to join relevant categories.
Paid subscriptions: when to launch them
Don’t launch a paid tier until you have at least 500 active subscribers with a 35%+ open rate. That’s the floor. Below that, you won’t get enough conversions to justify the mental overhead.
When you’re ready, the Beehiiv paid subscription setup is genuinely good — cleaner than Substack, more flexible than Kit’s paid options. I’d price at:
- Monthly: $7-9 (low barrier, high volume)
- Annual: $60-70 (best margins, commit readers)
Offer annual subscribers 1-2 months free vs the monthly price. It improves LTV significantly.
AI + Beehiiv: the content engine
The only sustainable paid newsletter is one that ships consistently good content. That means you need a reliable way to produce it. My workflow:
- Claude drafts the free weekly issue (90 minutes on Sunday)
- Paid issue is a deeper cut: same topic, but includes the template/system/prompt library I actually use
- Free readers get the insight. Paid readers get the tools.
This “insight vs. tools” split converts consistently because the free issue is genuinely valuable — which builds trust — and the paid upgrade is clearly differentiated.
Beehiiv vs Kit: which should you use?
Use Beehiiv if:
- You want the newsletter to be your primary product and website
- You want built-in monetization from day one
- You value the Boosts passive income and paid subscription tools
Use Kit (ConvertKit) if:
- Your newsletter supplements an existing website or business
- You need sophisticated email automation and tagging
- You sell digital products and want the automation to support that
Both are genuinely excellent. The choice depends on what your newsletter is to your business.
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About the author
Shahid Saleem is the founder and editor of PickGearLab. He tests AI tools in the real world — writing, automation, content — and writes up what actually worked. Based in Dubai.
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