AudienceBench

beehiiv Comps, Gift Subscriptions, and Trial Offers Explained (2026)

How beehiiv complimentary access, gift subscriptions, free and paid trials, and discount offers work, where to set them up, and which plan you need for each.

By AudienceBench Editorial · Published · Pricing & docs checked

Once you charge for a beehiiv newsletter, you’ll want ways to let some readers in for less, or for free. beehiiv has four: complimentary access (you give someone a paid tier at no charge), gift subscriptions (a reader buys your paid tier for someone else), free trials and paid trials (new readers try the paid tier, free or cheap, before regular billing starts), and percent discounts. All of them need a paid beehiiv plan and a paid tier connected to Stripe. Paid trials need Pro or Enterprise.

This guide is based on beehiiv’s help articles on complimentary access, gift subscriptions, subscription offers, paid tiers, the redesigned paid subscriptions area, the pricing block, retention options, and Substack migration, plus beehiiv’s public pricing page. We re-checked all of them on October 18, 2026. If you haven’t created a paid tier yet, start with How to set up paid subscriptions on beehiiv.

How we researched this: Every step, limit, and price below comes from beehiiv’s help center and pricing page. We haven’t run a paid newsletter on beehiiv or created these offers ourselves, so we can’t show you real screens or tell you how well trials or gifts convert. Several of beehiiv’s articles also carry a notice that they’re being updated after recent releases, so some labels in your account may differ.

About our links: beehiiv links on this page are affiliate links (/go/beehiiv). That’s the only program we earn from here. Stripe is mentioned but not linked, and we don’t earn from it. Our recommendations would be the same either way.

The short version

ToolWhat it doesWho paysPlan needed (per today’s sources)
Complimentary accessYou give a reader a paid tier for free, for days, months, years, or lifetimeNobodyPaid plans (Lite, Pro, Enterprise)
Gift subscriptionA reader buys a one-time, non-recurring subscription for someone elseThe gift buyerPaid plans
Free trial offerNew readers get the paid tier free for 1 to 90 days, then regular billingThe reader, after the trialPaid plans
Paid trial offerNew readers pay a lower trial price for a set period, then regular billingThe readerPro and Enterprise only
Discount offerA percentage off, for the first payment, forever, or a set number of billing cyclesThe readerPaid plans (coupons and promo codes are listed on Lite and up)

Where to find them, after beehiiv’s redesign: Subscriptions → Offers for complimentary access and all three offer types, and Subscriptions → Tiers for gift settings and the list of gifts sold.

Start on beehiiv

Before you start

  • A paid beehiiv plan. Every article used here is labeled All Paid Plans. On beehiiv’s pricing table, paid subscriptions are — on Free and Yes on Lite, Pro, and Enterprise.
  • Stripe connected and at least one paid tier. beehiiv’s tiers article says paid subscriptions require a connected Stripe account. Lite allows 1 paid tier; Pro and Enterprise allow unlimited tiers, per the pricing table.
  • The new Website Builder, if you want gifts and offers to appear on your site. beehiiv’s pricing block article says you need a paid plan to publish a page with a Pricing block, and the retention article says the legacy builder doesn’t get retention features.
  • Members or Admin role. beehiiv writes these articles for Members and Admins.

beehiiv’s docs don’t say whether these tools work while you’re on beehiiv’s own free trial of Lite or Pro, as opposed to a paid plan. If you’re trialing beehiiv, check in your account before you promise readers anything.

Complimentary access (comps)

A comp gives a reader full access to a paid tier at no charge, either for a set time or for life. beehiiv manages comps on the Offers tab, in their own flow that’s separate from trials and discounts. Common uses: press and reviewers, contributors, friends and family, and paid readers moving from another platform whose subscriptions aren’t in Stripe.

Create a comp offer

From beehiiv’s complimentary access article (updated Oct 1, 2026):

  1. In the left panel, go to Subscriptions, then click the Offers tab.
  2. In the Complimentary access section, click + New offer.
  3. Fill in the form:
    • Tier (required): the paid tier to grant.
    • Time Unit (required): Days, Months, Years, or Lifetime.
    • Duration (required): a number. This field disappears if you pick Lifetime.
  4. Click Create. The comp now appears in the Complimentary Access section.
  5. beehiiv then shows your subscriber list. Check the readers you want, then click Grant access to subscribers. Or click I’ll do it later.

Be careful with Lifetime. beehiiv says plainly: “Lifetime access cannot be revoked once given.” If you’re unsure, use a long fixed period like 1 year instead.

Give a comp to one reader

  1. Go to Subscribers, find the reader, and click their name to open the profile.
  2. Click the down arrow next to Unsubscribe (top right) and choose Complimentary Access.
  3. Pick the comp offer and click Grant access.

Give a comp to a group

On the Offers tab, find the comp in the Complimentary access section and click Grant access. Check the subscribers you want, then click Grant access to subscribers.

beehiiv’s Substack migration article (updated Jun 22, 2026) also mentions applying comps in bulk using Segments. The complimentary access article itself only describes the checkbox list, so the exact segment-based steps may have changed with the redesign.

Comps for migrated paid readers

If you’re leaving Substack, beehiiv says comped, gifted, and iOS (App Store) subscribers aren’t in Stripe, so its Stripe migration tool can’t move them. Give them complimentary access instead. beehiiv suggests using the Expiration date column in your Substack subscriber export to size each comp. You can match each reader’s remaining days exactly or group readers by period to save time (for example, “everyone who expires in May gets enough months to expire in June”). Our guides cover the full process: How to import paid subscribers into beehiiv and Migrate Substack → beehiiv.

What the comp article doesn’t say: whether a fixed-length comp can be ended early, exactly what happens when it runs out (gifts drop to the free tier; the comp article doesn’t confirm comps work the same), whether the reader gets an email about it, or whether comps show up in paid-subscriber stats. beehiiv’s subscriber status article lists five statuses (Active, Inactive, Pending, Paused, Needs approval) and doesn’t include a “comped” status.

Gift subscriptions

A gift lets anyone buy your paid tier for someone else. beehiiv says gifts are not recurring. Each one is a one-time purchase for one month, one year, or lifetime, depending on the tier’s billing cadence.

Turn on gifting (two places)

From beehiiv’s gift article (updated Oct 1, 2026):

  1. Go to Subscriptions → Tiers. On the tier you want, click the 3 dots menu → Edit (or turn it on while creating a tier with + New Tier).
  2. Continue to the advanced settings step. Under Additional purchase options, toggle on Gift subscription, then click Save (or Create).
  3. Also turn it on in the Website Builder. Select your Pricing block, scroll to the Gift section of the design panel, and click YES next to Enabled. Then publish your site.

Step 3 is easy to miss. The tier toggle alone doesn’t put a Gift button on your site. beehiiv recommends enabling gifts on all paid tiers. The same advanced-settings step has a separate Group subscription toggle, which is Pro and Enterprise only and needs an annual billing cadence. See beehiiv group subscriptions for how that works.

What the buyer and recipient see

  • Buying: On your Upgrade page, the buyer clicks Gift and fills in their name, their email, the recipient’s email, an optional message, and a send date. A gift scheduled for later goes out at 12 PM UTC on that date (7 AM Central during daylight time). Otherwise it’s sent right away. The buyer gets a Stripe receipt plus a confirmation email from your publication.
  • Claiming: The recipient gets an email with a Claim your gift button. If you use double opt-in, clicking it counts as opting in. They land on your site’s home page and get your welcome email if you have one. beehiiv says they skip the rest of your Signup Flow.
  • Timing: The gift starts when the recipient clicks Claim your gift. Monthly is 30 days and yearly is 365 days from that click. Lifetime doesn’t end.
  • Reminders and expiry: beehiiv sends two reminder emails, 7 days and 1 day before the gift ends, encouraging the recipient to upgrade. Your tier’s Upsell email isn’t sent for gifts. When the gift ends, the reader loses paid access and is automatically moved to your free tier. They can upgrade before then on your Upgrade page.

Gift rules worth knowing

From the gift article’s FAQ:

  • Unclaimed gifts expire. Recipients must redeem within 30 days. beehiiv sends one follow-up reminder.
  • Trials don’t carry over. Any free or paid trial you set on the tier isn’t applied to gift purchases.
  • No gifts on Name Your Price. Gifting works on Monthly, Annual, and One-Time payment options only. The tiers article now also offers a Quarterly cadence, and the gift article doesn’t say whether quarterly tiers can be gifted.
  • Gifting someone who already pays pauses their billing for the gift period, then resumes it.
  • Wrong recipient email? A gift can’t be reissued. The buyer has to purchase again and ask you about a refund.
  • Refunds are your call. beehiiv says cancellations and refunds are up to the publication owner and are handled through your Stripe account. beehiiv isn’t responsible for them.
  • Tracking: Subscriptions → Tiers → Gifts lists Purchased by, Recipient, Tier, Length, and Gift start date. You can search by email, filter by tier or length, and sort by start date.

Subscription offers: free trials, paid trials, and discounts

All three offer types are created on Subscriptions → Offers → + New offer. You pick the type, fill in the details, choose which tiers and billing cadences it applies to, and then set advanced options. Each offer has a Name (internal only), an optional Description (shown at checkout), and optional internal notes. The offers list separates active, expired, and archived offers. The steps below come from beehiiv’s offers article (updated Jun 25, 2026).

Who sees an offer is set under How can this offer be accessed:

  • Direct link only, for readers you send the link to (a launch email, a podcast mention, a partner).
  • Default upgrade page and direct link, so anyone visiting your Upgrade page sees it.

You can preview it and click Edit in website builder to change how it looks in your pricing block.

Free trial

  • Length: pick 1, 2, 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days. After that, the reader converts to the tier’s standard price.
  • No-card trials: the advanced toggle Allow trial redemption without a credit card lets readers start without payment details. Turning it on also switches on a trial reminder email by default.
  • Reminder email: choose how many days before or after the trial ends it goes out, and edit the email in beehiiv’s editor. You can also turn the reminder on or off separately from the no-card option.
  • Expiry date: optional last day the offer can be redeemed.
  • Not for group subscriptions.

A trade-off to think about: a no-card trial lowers the barrier to start, but the reader has to come back and add a card to keep reading. A card-required trial converts automatically unless they cancel. beehiiv’s docs don’t publish conversion numbers for either, and we haven’t measured them.

  • Plan: beehiiv’s pricing table shows Paid trials on Pro and Enterprise, not Free or Lite. The tiers article also refers to “paid trial tiers (available on Pro and Enterprise plans).”
  • Setup: set a duration in Days, Weeks, Months, or Years, choose how often readers are billed during the trial (Trial billing; the options depend on the duration), and set a Trial price. Then it converts to the regular tier price.
  • No refunds on cancel: beehiiv says canceling during a paid trial doesn’t issue a refund. The reader keeps access until the end of the period they paid for.
  • Not for group subscriptions. It also has the optional expiry date and reminder email.

Percent discount

  • Discount percentage plus a duration: Once (first payment only), Forever (every billing cycle), or Repeating (a set number of cycles).
  • Show discount on downgrade: an advanced toggle that shows this offer to readers who try to cancel or downgrade.
  • Group subscriptions only get the discount set inside the group subscription offer itself.
  • beehiiv’s pricing table lists Coupons + promo codes and Discount codes & coupons on Lite, Pro, and Enterprise.

Use a discount to keep readers who cancel

beehiiv’s retention article (updated Jul 28, 2026) describes a Subscription Retention Flow. You turn it on under Settings → General Info → Content Access. Readers who start to cancel can then pause for 1, 3, or 6 months, see your downgrade discount, and answer an optional survey. Points from that article:

  • You can have only one downgrade discount at a time.
  • Each retention offer can be redeemed once per subscriber.
  • Paused paid readers aren’t charged and lose web access to paid content until they resume.
  • The pause option applies to both free and paid readers. You can’t limit it to one or the other.
  • It needs the new Website Builder. Some of that article’s steps still use pre-redesign menu names (“Paid Tiers tab”), so expect the discount part to live on the Offers tab now.

For the full setup, what readers see while paused, and where beehiiv’s docs disagree, see our beehiiv retention flow guide.

See what’s working

After the redesign, Subscriptions → Overview → Offers section shows Promotion Effectiveness (offer redemptions and conversion rates) and an offer performance breakdown, per beehiiv’s navigation article.

Which one should you use?

  • Thanking or onboarding specific people (press, contributors, a podcast co-host): complimentary access with a fixed length. Save Lifetime for people you’re sure about, because it can’t be revoked.
  • Moving paid readers who aren’t in Stripe (Substack comps, gifts, iOS): complimentary access sized to what they had left.
  • Holiday or birthday sales driven by your readers: gift subscriptions on every paid tier, plus the Pricing-block Gift toggle. Remind readers before the holidays that the option exists.
  • Getting new readers to try paid: a free trial. beehiiv offers 1 to 90 days and doesn’t recommend a length. Use Direct link only if you want it just for one campaign.
  • Want a small commitment up front: a paid trial, if you’re on Pro. On Lite, a Once discount on the first payment is the closest substitute.
  • Reducing cancellations: a discount with Show discount on downgrade, plus the retention flow’s pause option.

Planning your first paid launch? Our free Newsletter Launch Checklist covers the setup steps to check before your first send.

Plan prices (context)

Comps, gifts, free trials, and discounts work on any paid plan, so Lite covers most of this. Paid trials, group subscriptions, and more than one paid tier need Pro. From beehiiv’s pricing page, checked October 18, 2026:

SubscribersLite (billed yearly / monthly)Pro (billed yearly / monthly)
1,000$49 / $59 per month$95 / $109 per month
2,500$69 / $79 per month$129 / $149 per month
5,000$95 / $109 per month$169 / $199 per month
10,000$119 / $139 per month$199 / $239 per month

Free is $0 up to 2,500 subscribers but has no paid subscriptions, so none of these tools. beehiiv’s FAQ says it takes 0% of paid subscription revenue (Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction still applies, per beehiiv), and that Lite and Pro include a free trial with no credit card needed. Full tables: beehiiv pricing explained.

What we couldn’t confirm

These aren’t answered in today’s official docs. Ask beehiiv support if they matter to you:

  • Ending a fixed-length comp early, and what happens when a comp expires (the gift article says gifts drop to free; the comp article doesn’t say).
  • Whether comp recipients get an email when you grant access.
  • Whether comps count in paid-subscriber or MRR stats.
  • Gifting a quarterly tier. The gift article lists Monthly, Annual, and One-Time only.
  • Whether these tools work during beehiiv’s own Lite/Pro free trial, before you pay.
  • Segment-based bulk comps after the redesign. Only the Substack article mentions them.

Our take

beehiiv gives you a full set of tools here, and most of it is on Lite: comps, gifts, free trials with or without a card, and discounts that can also show up when someone tries to cancel. The main reason to go to Pro for this is paid trials (or more than one tier). Two things trip people up: gifts need both the tier toggle and the Pricing-block toggle, and Lifetime comps can’t be taken back. If you’re migrating from Substack, plan your comps from the export’s expiration dates before you switch billing.

Try beehiiv · Set up paid subscriptions · Import paid subscribers · beehiiv vs Kit for paid newsletters · beehiiv pricing explained · Migrate Substack → beehiiv

Sources

All sources below were re-checked October 18, 2026.