Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover newsletter & email. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| beehiiv | Sendy | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $49 | From $69 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | One-time purchase |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Newsletter & Email, Monetization & Payments | Newsletter & Email, Email Marketing & Automation |
| Works with | Substack | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Newsletters with paid subscriptions and referrals
beehiiv handles sending, paid subscriptions, a referral program and a basic website, which covers most of what someone writing a weekly letter actually needs. It was built by people who ran Morning Brew, and it shows in the growth tooling. Automation is thinner than a dedicated email platform.
Our note
If you are starting a newsletter you intend to charge for, start here. The free tier goes further than it looks, the growth tools are the reason people stay, and the export is clean if you decide to leave.
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Self hosted sending on top of Amazon SES
Sendy is a PHP application you install on your own server, which then sends through Amazon SES at Amazon's rates rather than at a newsletter platform's. You buy the software once. At a list size where a hosted platform starts charging hundreds a month, the arithmetic is what people come for, and the cost is that hosting, deliverability and upgrades are now yours.
Our note
The arithmetic only works above roughly ten thousand subscribers, and below that a hosted platform is cheaper once your time is counted. Check the Amazon SES sending limits before buying, because a new SES account starts in a sandbox that will not send to the public.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
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