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The cheapest way to make money from a newsletter in 2026
A newsletter can earn from reader subscriptions, from ads, or from selling your own product. Only one of these four platforms has a reader-payment layer and an ad network built in, and it is not the cheapest one per month. Every number below is read from the vendor's own pricing page.
Prices last re-checked 2026-10-04. Numbers are read from each vendor's own pricing page; any exception is flagged under "What to watch".
Which one should you pick?
- Pick beehiiv if you need the cheapest platform built to earn from readers. Visit beehiiv
- Pick Kit (formerly ConvertKit) if you need the cheapest way to sell your own product to the list. Visit Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
- Pick MailerLite if you need the cheapest paid plan of the four. Visit MailerLite
- Pick Systeme.io if you also sell a course, this is the cheapest all-in-one. Visit Systeme.io
Some buttons are affiliate links — how this works.
The short answer
Short answer: Cheapest platform built to earn from readers: beehiiv beehiiv is free up to 2,500 subscribers. Lite is $59/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($49/mo billed yearly) and climbs with the list, and it is not sold above 100,000 subscribers. Paid subscriptions are 0% take, with the ad network, boosts and automations.
| Tool | Entry price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo (no annual discount published) | Up to 2,500 subscribers, 1 team seat, 1 publication, 30-day analytics lookback, |
| Lite | $59/mo, or $49/mo billed annually | Up to 100,000 subscribers, 2 team seats, 3 publications, paid subscriptions with |
| Pro | $109/mo, or $95/mo billed annually | Everything in Lite plus remove beehiiv branding, webinars and coaching, advanced |
Prices checked 2026-10-04.
Cheapest platform built to earn from readers: beehiiv
beehiiv is free up to 2,500 subscribers. Lite is $59/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($49/mo billed yearly) and climbs with the list, and it is not sold above 100,000 subscribers. Paid subscriptions are 0% take, with the ad network, boosts and automations. It is the only one of the four with a reader-payment layer at all. The trade-off: $59/mo at 1,000 subscribers is the most expensive entry price here, so below a few hundred paying readers the subscription costs more than the platform fee it saves you.
See beehiiv pricingCheapest way to sell your own product to the list: Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers and $33/mo Creator for unlimited visual automations, unlimited sequences and selling digital products. If the money comes from your own product rather than reader subscriptions, Kit is the cheapest of the four that can take the payment. The trade-off: there is no ad network and no reader-subscription billing.
See Kit (formerly ConvertKit) pricingCheapest paid plan of the four: MailerLite
MailerLite's free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, and Comfort starts at $12/mo with 50 automations. It is the cheapest paid entry here by a wide margin. The trade-off: there is no reader-payment layer and no ad network, so it cannot earn from the list on its own.
See MailerLite pricingCheapest all-in-one if you also sell a course: Systeme.io
Systeme.io is free up to 2,000 contacts with three funnels and one course, then $17/mo Startup for 5,000 contacts, 10 funnels and 5 courses. It is the only one of the four that includes the funnel and the course on the free plan. The trade-off: 2,000 contacts is a fifth of Kit's free tier and there is no ad network.
See Systeme.io pricingThe prices, plan by plan
beehiiv
beehiiv is free up to 2,500 subscribers. At 1,000 subscribers Lite is $59/mo ($49/mo billed yearly) and Pro is $109/mo ($95/mo billed yearly). At 10,000 subscribers Lite is $139/mo ($119/mo billed yearly) and Pro is $239/mo ($199/mo billed yearly). Lite is not sold above 100,000 subscribers. The pricing-page FAQ says Lite and Pro include a free trial, no credit card is needed to start, and the trial ends when you upgrade. That answer does not say how many days the trial lasts.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo (no annual discount published) | Up to 2,500 subscribers, 1 team seat, 1 publication, 30-day analytics lookback, unlimited email sends |
| Lite | $59/mo, or $49/mo billed annually | Up to 100,000 subscribers, 2 team seats, 3 publications, paid subscriptions with 0% take rate, ad network, automations, 12-month analytics lookback |
| Pro | $109/mo, or $95/mo billed annually | Everything in Lite plus remove beehiiv branding, webinars and coaching, advanced analytics, webhooks, dynamic content, up to 250,000 subscribers, 10 team seats, 10 publications, 24/7 priority support |
| Enterprise | custom quote | Custom pricing and subscriber volume, SSO/SAML, dedicated IPs, concierge onboarding |
What to watch: beehiiv does not publish a price for a subscriber count between the slider stops, so those in-between prices are not on this page. Every stop that is listed was read from beehiiv.com/pricing on 2026-10-10. The plan prices in the first table are the 1,000-subscriber stop. Lite is not sold above 100,000 subscribers. Yearly figures are the per-month price when you pay yearly. On 2026-10-12 the yearly cards in the page HTML still showed Lite at $49/mo and Pro at $95/mo at 1,000 subscribers. The monthly toggle is not in that HTML, so those monthly rates stay the 2026-10-10 reading. On that same read, the Pro card carried beehiiv's own Most Popular badge. This page does not treat that badge as a count of customers. The FAQ says the Lite and Pro trial ends when you upgrade, and it does not say how many days that trial lasts. The page HTML does not contain a 14-day trial.
Source: https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing, read 2026-10-10.
See beehiiv pricingKit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers on the Newsletter plan. At 1,000 subscribers Creator is $39/mo billed monthly or $390/yr and Pro is $79/mo or $790/yr. Yearly billing also prints an extra 25% off Pro for the first year only: $50/mo, $593 billed, then it renews at the standard rate. Both plans scale with list size (Creator $169/mo at 15,000, Pro $249/mo).
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free (Newsletter) | $0/mo | Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages and forms, unlimited broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, sell digital products |
| Creator | $39/mo, or $32.5/mo billed annually | Everything in Free plus unlimited visual automations, unlimited sequences, A/B subject lines, SMS, remove Kit branding |
| Pro | $79/mo, or $65.83/mo billed annually | Everything in Creator plus Subscriber Signals, engagement analytics, unlimited users, deliverability reporting, newsletter referral system. Yearly billing at 1,000 subscribers prints an extra 25% off the first year ($50/mo, $593 billed). The page says that discount is the first year only and the plan then renews at the standard rate. |
What to watch: Free / Creator / Pro were read from kit.com/pricing itself, at 1,000 email subscribers, on 2026-10-12. The monthly toggle prints Creator $39/mo and Pro $79. The yearly toggle prints Creator as $33/mo ($390 billed yearly); that $33 is the page's rounding of $390/12, so the table keeps $32.50. The same yearly view prints an extra 25% off Pro for the first year ($50/mo, $593 billed) with $66 struck through, and says the plan renews at the standard rate after that year. The card does not print the standard Pro yearly total of $790. Kit's paid plans scale with list size, so the price shown is the price at 1,000 subscribers, not a flat rate. Both paid plans say the trial is 14 days and that no credit card is required.
Source: https://kit.com/pricing, read 2026-10-05.
See Kit (formerly ConvertKit) pricingMailerLite
MailerLite is free up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. Comfort starts at $12/mo and Power at $25/mo at 250 subscribers, and both rise with list size.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo, 2 user seats, 1 website, 1 landing page, 3 signup forms |
| Comfort | $12/mo, or $10.8/mo billed annually | Starts at 250 subscribers, 3 user seats, 50 automations, 10 websites and landing pages, 5 digital products |
| Power | $25/mo, or $22.5/mo billed annually | Starts at 250 subscribers, unlimited monthly emails, unlimited user seats, unlimited automations and landing pages |
| Enterprise | custom quote | Custom pricing above 200,000 subscribers |
Prices checked 2026-10-04.
What to watch: The entry prices and free-plan caps are first-party, read from mailerlite.com/pricing. The annual rates and the subscriber-tier ladder are third-party (EmailToolTester, updated 5 Aug 2026) because MailerLite computes those numbers in JavaScript.
Source: https://www.mailerlite.com/pricing, read 2026-10-05.
See MailerLite pricingSysteme.io
Systeme.io is free up to 2,000 contacts, then $17/mo Startup, $47/mo Webinar and $97/mo Unlimited on monthly billing. Annual billing gives you two months free. Every plan includes unlimited email sends, unlimited sub-accounts, and 0% transaction fees. The free plan never expires and does not require a credit card.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo (no annual discount published) | 2,000 contacts, 3 funnels, 1 course, unlimited emails. Never expires, no credit card. |
| Startup | $17/mo, or $14/mo billed annually | 5,000 contacts, 10 funnels, 5 courses |
| Webinar | $47/mo, or $39/mo billed annually | 10,000 contacts, 50 funnels, 20 courses, evergreen webinars |
| Unlimited | $97/mo, or $80/mo billed annually | Unlimited contacts, funnels, courses, and automation rules |
What to watch: Monthly rates $17, $47, and $97 were read on systeme.io/pricing on 2026-10-13, in the page's own FAQ. That FAQ prints Webinar as 50 funnels and 20 courses, Unlimited as unlimited courses and automation rules, and every plan as unlimited email sends, unlimited sub-accounts, and 0% transaction fees. The free plan never expires and does not require a credit card. The same FAQ lists extra free-plan caps of 1 blog, 1 affiliate program, 1 custom domain, 1 automation rule, 1 email campaign, and 500 students. The pricing page prints Annual billing and 2 months free. The page HTML does not print the annual dollar amounts. Those dollars stay the 2026-10-05 reading from systeme.io's own affiliate page.
Source: https://systeme.io/pricing, read 2026-10-05.
See Systeme.io pricingMailchimp, Brevo and Constant Contact: what they cost
Every email-marketing comparison starts with these three names, so here is what each one actually charges. Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page and is re-checked weekly - the link goes to the full plan tables and the fine print:
- Mailchimp is free under 250 contacts. The free-plan column prints a max of 500 emails a month or 250 a day. Paid plans start at $13/mo for Essentials, $20/mo for Standard and $350/mo for Premium at the 0-500 contacts tier, and every price climbs as the contact count grows.
- Brevo is free at 300 emails a day, then Starter is $9/mo, Standard $18/mo and Professional $499/mo billed monthly, with yearly billing taking 10% off. Brevo prices by monthly email volume, not by contact count.
- Constant Contact starts at $12/mo on Lite, $35/mo on Standard and $80/mo on Premium billed monthly, or $10.20 / $29.75 / $68 per month billed annually. There is no permanent free plan. Constant Contact's own landing page says the trial is 30 days and no credit card is required. A paid plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Cheaper first paid month: Brevo Starter at $9/mo is below the cheapest paid step among the picks above (MailerLite Comfort at $12/mo). Those entry prices are for the smallest list or send volume each vendor sells, so price them at your own size before you switch.
Compare these numbers against the picks above at your own list size: the cheapest tool for a 500-contact shop is rarely the cheapest at 10,000 subscribers, and the free tiers stop at very different places.
Questions people ask
What is the cheapest option here?
beehiiv, which is free up to 2,500 subscribers and takes 0% of paid subscriptions on Lite at $59/mo - the cheapest platform here that can actually earn from readers. MailerLite is $12/mo, Systeme.io is $17/mo and Kit is $33/mo.
Which platform takes the smallest cut of reader payments?
beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscriptions on Lite at $59/mo. The other three have no reader-subscription billing at all, so there is no cut to compare - you would be sending readers to a separate payment tool.
What if I only want to sell my own product?
Kit, at $33/mo Creator, or free up to 10,000 subscribers if you only need broadcasts and a landing page. Systeme.io at $17/mo is cheaper still if you also want the funnel and the course included.
How many paying readers before beehiiv pays for itself?
Lite is $59/mo, so the ad network and the 0% take have to clear $49 a month before the platform is free to you. Below a few hundred paying readers, a $12/mo MailerLite plan plus a separate payment tool is usually cheaper.
Can I start a newsletter for free?
Yes, on all four. Kit is free to 10,000 subscribers, beehiiv to 2,500, Systeme.io to 2,000 contacts and MailerLite to 250 subscribers with 2,500 emails a month.
Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We do not accept payment for placement, and the price tables are generated from the same dataset we re-check weekly. Full disclosure. How we check prices.