Quick answer: beehiiv is a newsletter platform: it bills by subscriber count but gives you unlimited email sends on every plan, including its free Launch tier (up to 2,500 subscribers). Its paid Scale plan runs $49/mo at 1,000 subscribers and $109/mo at 10,000 (EmailTooltester). Bluey Email bills by emails sent with unlimited contacts — about $14/mo to email 10,000 contacts once a month. Choose beehiiv if you are a creator monetizing a newsletter or sending very frequently to a large list; choose Bluey for a CRM, transactional email, and predictable cost at normal send frequency. Full disclosure: Bluey is my own product — I have judged it on the same yardstick and I will say plainly where beehiiv wins.
The two tools are priced on opposite axes. beehiiv charges for how many people you store. Bluey charges for how many emails you send. Which one is cheaper depends entirely on how often you press send — and the crossover point is more interesting than either company’s marketing lets on.
The 30-second verdict
- Choose beehiiv if you run a content newsletter, want to monetize it (ads, paid subscriptions, boosts), or you email a large list very frequently.
- Choose Bluey if you want a built-in CRM, transactional and marketing email on one bill, unlimited contacts, and a bill that tracks your actual sending.
How much does beehiiv cost?
beehiiv has four plans — Launch, Scale, Max, and Enterprise — and the price of Scale and Max climbs with your active subscriber count. Per EmailTooltester’s verified table, Scale costs $49 at 1,000 subscribers, $69 at 2,500, $89 at 5,000, $109 at 10,000, $169 at 25,000, $199 at 50,000, and $329 at 100,000 subscribers; Max starts at $109 and reaches $459 at 100,000 (EmailTooltester). Above 100,000 subscribers you must move to Enterprise, which is custom-priced (beehiiv).
The free Launch plan is genuinely useful: up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends. But it excludes email automations, A/B testing, and every monetization feature — those begin on Scale (beehiiv). That is the jump EmailTooltester’s Inka Wibowo flags when she describes beehiiv as having “a sizable price jump from its free plan to its lowest paid tier.”
Bluey bills by send, with unlimited contacts from Grow upward: Free (500 contacts / 500 sends), Spark from $7/mo (about $14 at 10,000 sends), Grow $30/mo (unlimited contacts, roughly 50,000 sends; $84 at 250,000 and $180 at 1,000,000 sends), and Business $300/mo.
Which is cheaper — and where does beehiiv actually win?
Here is the part most comparison posts skip. Because beehiiv’s sends are unlimited, its effective cost per email falls the more you send. So the answer flips depending on frequency.
| Scenario | Emails sent / month | Bluey Email | beehiiv (Scale) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 subscribers, mailed monthly | 10,000 | ~$14 | $109 |
| 10,000 subscribers, mailed weekly | ~43,000 | $30 (Grow) | $109 |
| 50,000 subscribers, mailed daily | ~1,500,000 | ~$180+ | $199 |
At normal newsletter cadence — monthly or weekly — Bluey is dramatically cheaper, because storing subscribers costs nothing. But run the numbers on a daily send to a 50,000-person list and the gap closes to almost nothing; push past a million sends a month and beehiiv’s flat, unlimited-send tier will very likely beat send-based pricing outright. If you are a high-frequency publisher, beehiiv’s model is built for you and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Where beehiiv genuinely wins (said honestly)
- Unlimited sends on every plan, including free. No send caps, no overage anxiety. For daily newsletters this is the whole ballgame.
- Monetization is native and generous. beehiiv takes a 0% cut of paid subscription revenue (you still pay Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30), alongside a built-in ad network, Boosts, and digital products (beehiiv). For contrast, Substack takes 10% of every transaction (Substack).
- It is a publishing platform, not just an ESP. Website builder, custom domains, podcasts, link-in-bio, and a recommendation network are all included — even on the free tier.
- A real free plan. 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends, forever.
- Reviewers rate it highly for creators. EmailTooltester’s Inka Wibowo writes that beehiiv is “one of our highest-rated tools for newsletter creators, ranked ahead of popular alternatives such as Kit and Substack” (EmailTooltester).
beehiiv’s own customers are blunt about the growth angle. Shaan Puri, founder of Milk Road, is quoted on beehiiv’s pricing page: “We launched on beehiiv with nothing, scaled to over 250,000 subscribers, and got acquired all in under a year” (beehiiv). That is a vendor-published testimonial, so weigh it accordingly — but the platform’s growth tooling is real.
Where Bluey wins
- Cost at normal cadence. ~$14 vs $109 to email 10,000 contacts monthly. Storing a subscriber you rarely email is free.
- No subscriber ceiling. beehiiv’s Scale and Max plans cap at 100,000 subscribers before forcing an Enterprise conversation (beehiiv). Bluey’s Grow plan has unlimited contacts.
- A built-in CRM. beehiiv is a publishing tool; it does not try to be your contact database.
- Transactional and marketing email on one bill. beehiiv’s Send API is Enterprise-only (beehiiv). If you need receipts, password resets, and campaigns from one vendor, that is a hard blocker.
- Automations on paid entry tiers, plus pre-built ecommerce flows. beehiiv’s free plan has no automations at all.
Feature comparison at a glance
| Feature | Bluey Email | beehiiv |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per send (unlimited contacts) | Per subscriber (unlimited sends) |
| Cost at 10k, mailed monthly | ~$14 | $109 (Scale) |
| Free plan | 500 contacts / 500 sends | 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends |
| Automations on free plan | Limited | None (Scale and up) |
| Subscriber ceiling | Unlimited (Grow+) | 100,000 before Enterprise |
| Built-in CRM | Yes | No |
| Transactional email | Same bill | Enterprise only (Send API) |
| Ad network / paid subscriptions | No | Yes (0% take rate) |
| Website + podcast builder | Landing pages | Yes |
How to choose
- Count your sends, not your subscribers. Multiply list size by sends per month. That single number decides the pricing question.
- Is the newsletter the business? If you monetize via ads or paid subscriptions, beehiiv’s 0% take rate and ad network are hard to beat.
- Do you need a CRM or transactional email? Those are Bluey advantages beehiiv does not offer outside Enterprise.
- Will you pass 100,000 subscribers? Plan for the Enterprise conversation before you get there.
- Check what the free plan omits. beehiiv’s free tier has no automations — fine for a pure newsletter, limiting for lifecycle email.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bluey cheaper than beehiiv? At typical cadence, yes — about $14/mo versus $109/mo to email 10,000 contacts once a month, because beehiiv bills subscribers and Bluey bills sends (EmailTooltester). If you send daily to a large list, the advantage narrows and can reverse.
Does beehiiv have a free plan? Yes — the Launch plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, but excludes automations, A/B testing, and monetization (beehiiv).
Does beehiiv take a cut of paid newsletter revenue? No. beehiiv takes 0%; you pay only Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee (beehiiv).
Can beehiiv send transactional email? Only on Enterprise, via the Send API. Every other plan excludes it (beehiiv).
Can I switch from beehiiv to Bluey? Yes — export subscribers and rebuild automations. You gain a CRM, unlimited contacts, and transactional email; you give up the ad network, boosts, and the publishing/podcast layer.
The verdict
beehiiv is the better tool if your newsletter is the product: unlimited sends, a 0% take rate on subscriptions, an ad network, and a genuine publishing platform around it. That is not faint praise — for daily publishers and creators monetizing an audience, it wins on merit.
For everyone else — businesses that email a list monthly or weekly and also need a CRM, landing pages, and transactional email on one bill — Bluey Email costs a fraction as much at the cadence most people actually send, which is precisely why I built it on send-based pricing. Comparing the whole field? See Best Email Marketing Software in 2026. Weighing the creator tools specifically? Read Bluey vs Kit and beehiiv alternatives. New to the basics? Start with the complete email marketing guide.
— Shivam