Substack vs. beehiiv?

Substack:

1. Platform for writers and independent journalists to publish and monetize their content through a subscription model.
2. Provides a simple editor for writing and formatting posts, as well as tools for managing subscriptions, newsletters, and analytics.
3. Free to use but takes a 10% cut from subscriptions and other revenue sources.

Beehive:

1. Platform for hosting and monetizing independent blogs, podcasts, and other types of content.
2. Provides features such as an editor, hosting, and domain management, as well as tools for monetizing content through memberships, subscriptions, and sponsorships.
3. Charges a monthly fee for its services and does not take a cut from revenue.

Beehiiv looks much more featured and evolving fast.

I may migrate my React newsletter from ConvertKit to Beehiiv if this continues to evolve in the right direction, as ConvertKit is quite expensive and not evolving, and has many UX problems IMHO.

Substack doesn't look like such a great product to me, and mostly focuses on paid subscription model apparently. Still, it seems to have really great network effects thanks to its recommendation system.

Beehiiv over Substack, simply because the Substack offer isn't that compelling. A 10% cut is a lot, in my view. Beehiiv is a really good deal, in contrast, with a wide range of options you can use, especially at the $84/mo tier. Being a WordPress guy and having set up an experimental WordPress site to work out the details of building a self-owned Substack-like newsletter site, you can do it for less on WordPress, to a point, but if you started needing to send to large lists (a good problem to have), you'd be spending as much in a month and you'd have more administrative overhead, I suspect.

The one thing I'd say for a WordPress approach, though, is that personally I think it's always good to own your platform. Beehiiv is priced for growth right now, but they are underselling mail services in a way that makes me pretty sure those prices are going up somewhere down the road. Do you replatform at that point? I bet you don't.

And the other thing: if you have any thoughts about doing a more personalized, highly segmented kind of newsletter/email service at any point, you want to own your own thing, whether it's on WordPress or something else. Because you simply won't be able to do transactional kinds of mailings like that on either Substack or Beehiiv.

With the latest editors' features, pricing and easy-to-use setting panel, I have preferred Beehiiv.

Here is a great article comparing different ESPs.
You may check it out for detailed information.

https://inboxcollective.com/aweber-beehiiv-convertkit-ghost-mailchimp-substack-which-is-the-right-esp-for-your-indie-newsletter/

I went with substack because I don't plan to cross over to paid subscriptions. The hype around beehiiv made it intriguing but I don't want to pay if my newsletter grows when there's a free option

I choose the Substack for tech-stack.tools Newsletters

I just do not like the editor of beehiiv

I have been using Substack for Micro SaaS Ideas Newsletter at a volume of 25,000 subscribers.

I think both platforms are decent.

Substack - When you want a simple Newsletter and want to stay on free plan for a long time. There is no API and Referral programs not possible. There are some tools that can hack and add a Referral program to Substack but that would need you manually download subs and upload subs to those tools and are not so great with workflow.

BeeHiiv - When you want more capabalities and are okay to pay when you grow big with subscribers. Got API and has Referral mechanism inbuilt.

I never used Beehiiv, but Substack comes with a bunch great tools which is, in comparison to Shopify, deserves a subscription.