I'll never forget the day I checked my client’s Substack earnings dashboard and realized something didn't add up.

It was the first moment I really asked myself, “How much does Substack cost once you’re actually earning money?” 

My client had 650 paid subscribers at $5 each. I did quick math in my head while making coffee that morning: $3,250 a month.

But when I logged onto the dashboard and saw the numbers? $2,827.50.

$422.50 was just…gone.

Where was that money going? 

Turns out, Substack isn't free. Not even close.

And my client? Paying for it and not realizing how much it costs. That was a no-go for me.

I've now spent two years building newsletters on both Substack and beehiiv. I noticed I was leaving thousands of dollars on the table every year. Let me break down the numbers, share the fees nobody warns you about, and explain why I eventually made the switch to beehiiv.

When I first started my newsletter journey, I was so proud to tell clients, “Substack is free!”

And technically? I wasn't lying. But I wasn't telling them the whole truth either.

Substack's pricing—there's no monthly bill. No $29 or $99 charge hits your credit card every month, as you'd see with other platforms.

Instead? They take a slice of every dollar you earn. Every single payment from every single subscriber. It's so quiet you almost don't notice it happening.

At first, this felt fine.

But then the subscriber count went from 100 to 300 to 1,000, and I started watching how much was disappearing before it ever hit the bank account. 

That was the moment I finally understood the real Substack cost: the quiet percentage disappearing every month. I

Many creators start on Substack. Samir Mezrahi, the innovative mind behind Zillow Gone Wild, a popular social media trend, mentioned, “I started on Substack before coming to beehiiv. I was one guy doing Zillow Gone Wild, so my publishing frequency varied from every other week to every month or two.”

Let's get into the Substack specifics, because the devil is absolutely in these details. 😈

Every. Single. Dollar. From every paid subscriber. Gets hit with that 10% fee.

I remember when one of my clients first passed 1,000 paid subscribers, I was so excited! I thought, $5,000 a month, what an accomplishment! 💰

Then reality hit. Substack was taking $500. That's $6,000 a year. 🤯

The kicker? There's no “congratulations on your success” discount. No loyalty program.

As you grow, they just take more.

Let me show you what this looks like at scale:

For my newsletter, when I hit around $1,500 in monthly revenue, I started doing the math on alternative platforms. That's when I realized the Substack subscription cost model was designed to trap successful creators. The better you do, the more expensive they become.

And honestly? It made me a little angry.

Not exactly at Substack, they're a business doing what businesses do. But I was angry at myself for not questioning it sooner.

Substack uses Stripe to process payments, and Stripe doesn't work for free.

They charge 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, PLUS an additional billing fee. If your subscribers signed up after July 2024, that billing fee is 0.7%.

When I first started, I thought “okay, 10% to Substack, that's fine.” But I didn't realize there were all these other fees piling up. It's like ordering something online and then getting hit with shipping, handling, processing, and convenience fees.

Here's what you keep from a single $5 monthly subscriber:

So that's 99 cents disappearing into thin air every single month per subscriber. For someone paying you $10/month, about $1.59 in fees vanishes.

Can you use substack for free? Here's what Substack's marketing doesn't tell you: yeah, you can use the platform for free forever. But only if you never try to make money from it.

I spent my first three months on the free plan while I figured things out and built my audience. And honestly? It was great. I could publish as much as I wanted, have as many subscribers as I could get, and it didn't cost me a penny.

Many creators felt the same way as I did. Joël Collin-Demers, head editor and author of The Pure Procurement Newsletter, recalled, “I experimented with Substack for a little while because it was free to get on the platform, and they had a very good presence at the time — but that was about 2-3 years ago.”

Here's the thing. You're probably not planning to write for free forever. You want to get paid for your work at some point. And the moment you flip that switch to start charging subscribers, that "free forever" deal completely changes.

What you're really doing is agreeing to pay rent on your own audience. Every month. Every year. Forever.

And honestly, Substack's approach is kind of brilliant in a frustrating way. By removing all the upfront costs, they make it so easy just to start.

And then you're in deep.

So, most of us just stay even when the math stops mathing.

Linda Hwang has extensive experience in B2B marketing and previously worked at a renowned international facilities management company. There, she played a crucial role in creating effective content and social media marketing plans. Now, Hwang is a marketing consultant who helps small businesses create compelling brand stories.

By the time I started comparing platforms, the question wasn’t just “How much is Substack?” It was, “how much am I losing by staying here?”

Even when I started noticing the fees eating into my income and my clients’ incomes, I kept telling myself it was fine. “Everyone uses Substack,” I thought. “It's simple. Readers know where to find us here.”

But when I crossed $3,000 in monthly revenue for my newsletter, something in my brain just clicked. I'm the kind of person who needs to see the numbers visually, so I opened a spreadsheet one night and started calculating exactly what I was paying.

Substack's platform fees alone cost me around $390 every month. And that wasn't even counting all the Stripe transaction fees on top of it.

I complained to a friend who was also a marketer, and she told me about beehiiv. She said, "I'm paying like $80 a month total and keeping everything else."

I researched it. And honestly? Should have done it sooner.

beehiiv doesn't take a cut of your revenue. Nothing.

They just charge you a flat monthly fee. That's it. I'm on their Scale plan, which starts at $43 a month for up to 1,000 subscribers. And here's what changed everything for me: I keep 100% of what my subscribers pay me.

Here’s what finally made me pull the trigger and switch.

Here's what I was paying on Substack:

Here's what I pay now on beehiiv:

That's a difference of over $1,200 every single month.

I wasn't just saving money. I was getting way more features than Substack ever gave me.

Substack A/B test subject lines? No help. Send a survey? Not really. Set up automated welcome emails? Good luck.

beehiiv has all that built in. A/B testing, surveys, AI writing tools, and automation sequences. And they're not add-ons. They just come with the plan.

The first time I A/B tested two subject lines on beehiiv, it took me five minutes and boosted my open rate by 8%. On Substack, I would've just guessed and hoped.

I was paying over $1,000 a month on Substack for fewer features than I'm getting now for $61.

If you’re looking for functionality, you’ll find it with beehiiv.

Christian Blackwell, general manager of GRIT Capital and co-author of its three newsletters, once stated, “Substack is still a great platform. I just feel like I didn't have all of the tools necessarily that beehiiv has (and that's what we told them [Substack] as well). It’s probably a little bit easier to grow on beehiiv.”

I love data, so this part really got me excited.

beehiiv's analytics are much deeper than Substack's. I can see exactly which subscribers are my most engaged readers, what content performs best, who's likely to churn, and where my growth is coming from.

On Substack, I basically had open rates and click rates. That's about it, which is fine if you just want to write and not think too hard about the numbers.

With beehiiv, I discovered that my Tuesday morning sends had open rates 30% higher than my Friday afternoon sends. I found out that my "how-to" posts got way more engagement than my personal essays (even though I personally loved writing those essays more). I could see exactly which topics were attracting new subscribers versus which were causing people to unsubscribe.

The only question I should have considered was whether that cost structure makes sense for what my goals are and where I am trying to go.

As an example, you grow to 5,000 subscribers over three years (totally doable if you're consistent):

Over three years, you have handed Substack roughly $32,000. That's a used car. A year of living expenses.

When people ask, "How much is Substack?" or "Does Substack cost money?", I want them to see this. The real Substack subscription cost isn't just what you pay this month. It's what you'll pay as you grow.

On beehiiv's flat rate? Those same three years cost me around $5,000 to $8,000 total.

That's $24,000 I get to keep.

Substack works great for two types of people:

But everyone in between?

Once you're consistently making $1,000+ a month, the Substack cost no longer makes sense.

My advice? 

Switch before you hit major revenue milestones. The emotional investment is lower, the technical work is simpler, and you have less to lose if something goes sideways.

Migration… This was my biggest fear. I kept imagining technical disasters, angry subscribers, lost data, and broken links.

The reality? Shockingly easy.

beehiiv has migration tools built for people leaving Substack.

Step-by-step tutorials.

A support team that responds.

I exported my subscriber list from Substack (it's your data, you own it) and imported it into beehiiv. The platform walked me through everything. Design, archives, domain setup, automations.

Most subscribers didn't even notice. In exchange, I save over $1,000 every month. Best trade I've ever made.

Here’s a great article on migrating from Substack to beehiiv.

I stayed on Substack for almost 18 months after I should have left.

I knew exactly how much Substack cost me every month. But I stayed anyway because change felt scary, and I kept telling myself, “Maybe next month,” or “When I hit 2,000 subscribers.”

In my first six months on beehiiv, I saved over $7,000 compared to what I would have paid on Substack. That's real money I reinvested in my business, used to take time off, and spent celebrating my wins.

beehiiv gives you more powerful features, better analytics, sophisticated automation, and complete control over your revenue. All for a flat monthly rate that gets cheaper per subscriber as you grow.

Don't wait as long as I did.

Try beehiiv free today and see the difference for yourself.

beehiiv’s free plan supports up to 2,500 subscribers. No credit card required. Import your list, test the tools, run the numbers.

I think you'll be as surprised as I was by how much better it gets.