This article has been updated to maintain its accuracy and relevance. 

What if I told you you didn’t have to settle? That there is a right one out there for you?

That’s right–there is an email newsletter app out there that will give you the best of both worlds. (When it comes to people though…well, you’ll have to ask someone else).

Choosing an app for your email newsletter can be difficult. It may feel as if each option forces you to settle, giving up some features in exchange for others. There are several options to choose from, and each comes with pros and cons that aren’t always obvious until you start using the app. 

Most of the options are not one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, most have focused on a specific niche such as e-commerce, creators, or writers. Tailoring its features to the needs of that subset. 

In this post, we will review the pros and cons, and then highlight our favorite app–one that has tools and features suited for any niche or industry. By the end of this article, you will have the confidence to make the right decision for your email newsletter app. 

Okay, maybe I am a bit biased here, but let me explain.

beehiiv provides a comprehensive newsletter platform complete with a premium ad network, excellent pricing, and best-in-the-industry analytics, with a complete focus on making your newsletter the best it can be.

beehiiv has a robust set of features that make it the ideal choice for your newsletter app, many of which are available on the $0 launch plan.

beehiiv hosted websites are fully integrated with your newsletter, and without writing any code whatsoever, you can make an amazing website. Better yet, you can do it all in one place, without having to worry about finding a separate site to build your page.

Just check out some of these amazing websites that are built on beehiiv: 

The Daily Bite looks effortlessly cool with pink, purple, and lime green. 

This screenshot doesn’t do Ponderer’s website justice. Just go experience those satisfying animations.

Andy’s Newsletter looks crisp and memorable with a simple logo and a visually pleasing background. 

You can create world-class newsletters with ease – and save your newsletter creations as a template to use time and again, getting your content out quickly so you can publish faster, and grow more.

Big Desk Energy is one newsletter created on beehiiv, and looks amazing with retro pc vibes. 

3D analytics provide incredible insight to your subscribers. You can get actionable data into your content, marketing, and acquisition strategies so that you can truly create a world-class experience for your subscribers. 

You can create subscriber tags that give you a simple and effective way to segment your audience, organize your subscriber list, and take your engagement to the next level. Using these tags, you can categorize your audience however you want. 

The segmentation tool allows you to create segments based on data points that you can use for analytics and personalization. No matter what portion of your audience you wish to send to, you’ll find an option to suit your needs.

The content management system is easy to use – but at beehiiv, easy doesn’t mean basic. The content management system allows you to save templates for reuse in new posts. Writing in the editor is intuitive and allows you to quickly create a captivating newsletter. If you’re working in a team, collaborating within the content management system is a breeze.

You can monetize your newsletter with premium advertisers, without all the stress of going out and securing your own sponsors. You’ll automatically get matched with sponsors that are a great fit for your audience, and getting paid is fast and easy. 

If you’re looking to monetize your newsletter, you can apply to Boost, or recommend, other newsletters. Each new subscriber to your newsletter will be shown your boosted recommendations, and when you opt-in to the newsletter that’s recommended to you, you’ll get paid. 

If you’re looking to grow your newsletter, you can use the Boosts network to acquire new subscribers quickly. You can set your own price and everything is fully integrated for you. 

You can create premium subscriptions, even at different tiers with unique price points. The possibilities are endless. 

Gathering information from your subscribers has never been easier with options for surveys, forms, and polls directly in beehiiv. You can even use the info you gather to create segments of your audience to give them a truly personalized experience. 

beehiiv is at the forefront of AI optimizations, leading with subject line optimizer, AI writing assistant, social media post suggestions, website builder, and more.

Want to check out the competition? Great idea. There are several other options for email newsletter apps. Here are just a few of the main contenders.

Mailchimp is a marketing giant and has many services under one roof. Its size works as both a pro and a con.

Mailchimp’s focus is certainly not newsletters. They are an email marketing service that happens to include newsletter functionality as a part of that service.

The size of the brand means they can offer landing pages, A/B testing, and segmentation–all key features in an email newsletter app. They are also able to offer automated email sequences which are, arguably, their bread and butter.

Mailchimp’s versatility comes at a significant cost though–a cost that will penalize and potentially limit your email sends as you grow.

The Mailchimp marketing platform’s pricing for up to 10,000 contacts will cost you $135 per month for the standard plan, or $350 for the premium plan. These plans will limit you to 120,000 or 150,000 emails sent per month, respectively. If you’re planning on sending a daily newsletter, you would blow through these caps in the 3rd week of the month. 

Compare that to beehiiv’s plans, where you get unlimited email sends, even on the $0 Launch plan (up to 2,500 subscribers).

The Convert Kit platform focuses its app on creators. They are a direct competitor to Mailchimp, offering landing pages and email marketing automation.

Unlike Mailchimp, Convert Kit does offer the ability to set up a paid newsletter. Convert Kit’s newsletter product also focuses on creators by offering the ability to set up sales funnels to pitch subscribers on a product or service.

Convert Kit integrates with Stripe to accept payments for products listed within the newsletter. They charge a slightly increased rate for this service, at 3.5% + $0.30 as a transaction fee.

The biggest concern with choosing Convert Kit as your newsletter app is its pricing. The pricing scales very quickly, in a similar fashion to Mailchimp. 

They do have a free plan for up to 10,000 subscribers–but after that, it’ll cost you $100 per month for 10,000 subscribers on their basic Creator Plan.

Substack is a streamlined newsletter-only app. It has a minimalistic interface–which, if your focus is on writing only, is a positive for most writers.

One of Substack’s best features–one beehiiv has also taken inspiration from–is recommendations. This feature allows one newsletter to endorse another on the platform, which can be mutually beneficial to both newsletters in helping them grow.

Substack allows writers to create free, paid, or hybrid newsletters where only some content is behind a subscription. The app is free to use but charges a substantial fee for subscriptions.

The fee on subscriptions is the biggest downside to Substack. They charge a 10% fee and also have the 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee and a 0.7% billing fee for recurring subscriptions from Stripe.

If you’re running an e-commerce business, you will want to consider Drip for handling your newsletter.

Drip is an all-in-one marketing solution for e-commerce. The platform handles automated email sequences using advanced segmentation which allows for increased personalization in your emails.

If you’re running a stand-alone newsletter, or a business in any other niche, however, Drip is not going to be for you. The entire platform is designed to integrate with e-commerce stores, and each feature has been built with e-commerce in mind.

Pricing for Drip starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people, then scales every 500 subscribers from there.

We created beehiiv to be the best newsletter app available. You only need to look at newsletters like The Milk Road, Exec Sum, and Payload to see the potential for success with our app.

Getting started with beehiiv is a simple process that will have you up and running in minutes.

beehiiv has a best-in-the-industry forever free plan that allows you to grow up to 2,500 subscribers and send unlimited emails to all of them. 

The Scale and Max plans start at $39 and $99 per month respectively, and take your newsletter to the next level with monetization, automations, and more. 

beehiiv has a robust set of features entirely focused on growing your newsletter. 

I use beehiiv for my own newsletter, currently in the proof-of-concept stage, on the free Launch plan. Having the ability to quickly put together a newsletter from a saved template allows me to create my weekly curation newsletter in about an hour.

I have all of the features I need available to me, including open rates, click-through rates, and what links are getting clicks in each newsletter sent. This has allowed me to zero in on what type of content my subscribers are wanting to interact with and is helping me create a better newsletter for my audience.

Ultimately, to choose the best app for your newsletter you will need to decide what features are most important to you and what your vision is for your newsletter over the long term.

There are great options for you to choose from. The best part about healthy competition–it drives innovation. There are subtle differences between the major newsletter apps, though, and you will need to decide what makes each one the right choice for your business.

Start with the app that makes the most sense for your newsletter today. You can always migrate over to another service later if your plans change. 

We are confident that beehiiv will provide your newsletter with the best opportunity to grow, with the best features, at an extremely competitive price. Get started with your free launch plan today and come see what all the hype is about.

If you’re building a newsletter to grow your audience and actually turn it into a business, beehiiv is your best bet.

It brings everything together, publishing, audience growth, analytics, monetization, and even a custom website, all in one place.

You don’t need to patch together multiple tools or worry about integrations. beehiiv gives you everything you need to launch, grow, and scale your newsletter from day one.

The best app to make a newsletter is the one that helps you do more than just send emails.

With beehiiv, you can design beautiful newsletters, build a custom website, track advanced analytics, and even earn through ads, boosts, and paid subscriptions.

It’s built by newsletter creators, for newsletter creators, so everything is designed to help you grow faster and focus on what matters most: your content and your community.

if you’re focused on building, beehiiv is the better option.

While Mailchimp is great for traditional email marketing, beehiiv was built from the ground up for newsletter creators. You get an intuitive editor, growth tools like referral programs and boosts, and monetization options built right in. Plus, even the free plan includes unlimited sends for up to 2,500 subscribers.

So if you want to grow your audience and make your newsletter your business — beehiiv is the smarter choice.