AudienceBench

beehiiv Site Redirects: Keep Old Post Links Working After a Migration (2026)

How beehiiv redirects work: Lite's 10 vs Pro's unlimited, simple vs wildcard rules, 404 fallbacks, and mapping old WordPress, Ghost, or Substack URLs to /p/.

By AudienceBench Editorial · Published · Pricing & docs checked

When you move a newsletter archive to beehiiv, every old post gets a new address. beehiiv post URLs always look like yourdomain.com/p/post-name. If your old platform used a different format, links from Google, other sites, and your old emails will hit a dead end unless you set up redirects. beehiiv has a built-in redirect tool with simple one-to-one rules, wildcard rules that cover many URLs at once, and a 404 fallback. It needs a paid plan. Lite allows 10 redirects, and Pro and Enterprise allow unlimited.

This guide is based on beehiiv’s “Website redirect options” article, its guide to matching legacy site URLs, its publishing, Ghost, Substack, content-import, manual-migration, and custom-domain articles, and beehiiv’s public pricing page. We re-checked all of them on October 19, 2026. Moving your posts first? Start with How to import your newsletter archive into beehiiv.

How we researched this: Every step, limit, and price below comes from beehiiv’s help center and pricing page. We haven’t migrated an archive to beehiiv or built these redirects ourselves, so we can’t show you real screens or confirm edge cases beehiiv doesn’t document. The URL patterns marked as examples are our own illustrations. Test each one in beehiiv’s Test patterns tab before you rely on it.

About our links: beehiiv links on this page are affiliate links (/go/beehiiv). That’s the only program we earn from here. Our recommendations would be the same either way.

The short version

QuestionAnswer (per today’s sources)
Which plans have redirects?Paid plans only. Pricing table: Free —, Lite 10, Pro Unlimited, Enterprise Unlimited
Moving from Substack with a custom domain?You probably need no redirects. beehiiv uses the same /p/ URLs as Substack
Moving from WordPress, Ghost, or elsewhere?You need redirects to keep old links working
Can one rule cover a whole archive?Yes, if your old URLs follow one pattern and the new beehiiv slug can be built from parts of the old URL. beehiiv’s own docs show this. See below
What type of redirect is it?beehiiv’s dashboard lists the type, for example 301 permanent
Do they work right away?Yes. beehiiv says redirects go live immediately on your published site
Safety net for anything you missed?A 404 redirect to your homepage or a custom “not found” page

Start on beehiiv

Before you start

  • A paid beehiiv plan. The redirects article is labeled All Paid Plans. On the pricing table, Site redirects are — on Free.
  • Your custom domain connected to beehiiv. Redirects only help if the old links point at a domain you control and have moved to beehiiv. Custom domains are Lite and up. See How to set up a custom domain on beehiiv.
  • Your posts imported and published, so the new /p/ addresses actually exist. Check a few imported posts and write down their real URLs.
  • Your site published. beehiiv says to test your patterns, update internal links, and publish your site before creating your redirect, because redirects take effect immediately.
  • Members or Admin role. beehiiv writes the redirects article for Members and Admins.

Already have a beehiiv subdomain in links? beehiiv’s custom domain article says that once your custom domain is your web domain, yourpublication.beehiiv.com automatically redirects to it and keeps the full URL path. Those links don’t need rules.

Links to a domain you no longer control can’t be fixed with beehiiv redirects. That includes yourname.substack.com or a free wordpress.com address. beehiiv’s redirects only work on paths on your own beehiiv site.

The three kinds of redirects in beehiiv

beehiiv’s “Website redirect options” article (updated Oct 9, 2026) describes three methods:

  1. Automatic: If you change the URL of a custom page in the new Website Builder, beehiiv redirects the old URL to the new one for you. These don’t count toward your plan’s limit. beehiiv says this only applies to custom pages, not “default or dynamic pages,” and only to pages built in the new builder.
  2. Manual: Rules you build yourself on the Redirects page. They can be simple (one old path to one new path) or wildcard patterns. These are the ones you’ll use for a migrated archive.
  3. 404 redirect: A fallback for any visitor who lands on a page that doesn’t exist.

Where to find the Redirects dashboard

The redirects article says: Website → Website settings → Redirects. beehiiv’s legacy-URL article words it as Settings icon → Site settings → Configure → Redirects, and its publishing article says Builder → Settings → Redirects. They all point to the same place. The labels just differ by article and builder version.

The dashboard has three tabs:

  • Manage redirects: every redirect with its Old Path, New Path, Method (auto, manual, or 404), Type (for example, 301 permanent), and Created Date. You can switch each one on or off, edit it (pencil icon, then ✓ Update redirect), or delete it (trash icon).
  • Build redirect: enter an old path and a new path, then click ✓ Build redirect.
  • Test patterns: type a path and click Test to see which rule it matches, where it would go, and what the wildcards captured.

Disable instead of delete when unsure. beehiiv says deleting a redirect is permanent. Turning it off can be undone.

Simple redirects

A simple redirect sends one old path to one new path. beehiiv’s examples:

  • /products/old-item → /products/new-item
  • /old-page → /parent-page/new-page

For an archive, that would look like /2023/05/my-best-post/ → /p/my-best-post (our example). One rule per post is easy to get right. But on Lite you only get 10, so this works for a handful of high-traffic posts, not a whole archive.

Wildcard redirects

Wildcards are how you cover many URLs with one rule. In beehiiv’s words, you use * “as a placeholder to match any path segment (the text between slashes). Each * becomes $1, $2, and so on in your new path.” beehiiv says they’re “especially useful for date-based URLs or when migrating a blog.”

beehiiv’s three examples:

TypeOld pathNew pathResult
Single wildcard/blog/*/articles/$1/blog/my-awesome-post → /articles/my-awesome-post
Multiple wildcards/*/*/*/*//p/$1-$2-$3-$4/2024/01/15/my-post → /p/2024-01-15-my-post
Mixed/docs/*/guides/*/help/$1/$2-guide/docs/api/guides/authentication → /help/api/authentication-guide

Note that beehiiv’s multiple-wildcard example ends the old path with a slash but the result doesn’t show one. The docs don’t say how trailing slashes are handled, so test both versions of an old URL.

Can one wildcard cover a whole archive?

Yes, with a big condition. beehiiv’s docs show single rules covering whole groups of URLs. The date-based blog example above maps every /year/month/day/post URL to /p/ with one rule. beehiiv’s legacy-site article (updated Aug 25, 2026) sends every old /c/page-name URL to /page-name with a single rule: old path /c/*, new path /$1. (Moving off the legacy builder? See how to move a legacy beehiiv website to the new builder.)

The condition: a wildcard can only rearrange pieces of the old URL. It can’t look anything up. One rule works only if every post’s new beehiiv slug can be built from its old URL. The most common case is the same post name, just moved under /p/. If beehiiv gave your imported posts different slugs, no single rule can match them, and you’re back to one rule per post.

beehiiv’s content-import article doesn’t say what slug imported posts get, so check this yourself. Open a few imported posts in beehiiv and compare their URLs to the old ones. If you add posts by hand, beehiiv’s manual-migration article says you can edit each post’s Post URL to match the original slug. That’s what makes a single pattern possible.

Example patterns for common platforms

These are our illustrations, built on beehiiv’s documented wildcard rules. Your old URLs may differ. Check your old site’s real URL format and run each pattern through Test patterns first.

Substack

beehiiv’s Substack migration article (updated Jun 22, 2026) says beehiiv uses the same /p/ structure, so if you move your Substack custom domain, “you don’t need to configure redirects manually.” Our Substack to beehiiv migration guide covers the move.

WordPress

WordPress lets you choose a permalink format, so look at a real post URL on your old site.

  • Date and name (/2024/01/15/my-post/): if beehiiv kept my-post as the slug, try old path /*/*/*/* → new path /p/$4 (our example). If your beehiiv slugs include the date, beehiiv’s own example /p/$1-$2-$3-$4 fits.
  • Month and name (/2024/01/my-post/): /*/*/* → /p/$3 (our example).
  • A fixed prefix (/blog/my-post/): /blog/* → /p/$1. This matches beehiiv’s single-wildcard example almost exactly.
  • Post name only (/my-post/): see the warning under Ghost below.

beehiiv’s import tool reads WordPress content from your /feed. See our archive import guide for the feed settings.

Ghost

beehiiv’s Ghost article (updated Jul 30, 2026) says backlinks to past posts “will not work unless bulk 301 redirects are configured to direct to the new post links containing /p/.” It doesn’t say how to do that in bulk. Wildcards are the bulk tool beehiiv documents.

If your Ghost (or WordPress “post name”) posts sit right after the domain, like yourdomain.com/my-post/, the obvious rule is /* → /p/$1 (our example). Be careful with this one. A one-segment wildcard could also match other one-segment paths on your site, such as custom pages. beehiiv’s docs don’t say whether real pages win over a matching redirect, or which rule wins when several match. Test your key pages (home, subscribe, about, any custom pages) in Test patterns before you turn it on. If they get caught, use simple redirects for your most-linked posts instead.

Kit, Mailchimp, and others

Check where your old archive links actually point. If they point at Kit’s or Mailchimp’s domains rather than your own (a Mailchimp campaign-archive link, for example), beehiiv redirects can’t catch them. If you did host posts on your own domain, use the same approach as WordPress: find the URL pattern, then test a rule. Our Kit → beehiiv and Mailchimp → beehiiv guides cover the rest of those moves.

Set a 404 fallback

Whatever your rules miss, a 404 redirect catches it. beehiiv’s steps:

  1. Go to Website → Website settings → Redirects.
  2. Under 404 Redirect, enter the destination as a full URL, including https://.
  3. It saves automatically.

Point it at your homepage or a custom “not found” page that links to your archive and a subscribe form. A fallback keeps visitors from a dead end. But it doesn’t send them to the right post, so don’t use it in place of real redirects for posts that get traffic.

beehiiv also says unexpected 404s or redirects often mean some pages aren’t published. Its publishing article notes that Publish only pushes the page currently open unless you pick All pages or select pages.

Test before (and after) you go live

beehiiv’s Test patterns tab is a sandbox. Enter a test path and click Test. If a rule matches, you see which one, where it sends the visitor, and the captured values (for example, $1 = "my-awesome-post"). If nothing matches, beehiiv tells you the visitor would see a 404.

A simple routine:

  1. Make a list of your 20 to 50 most-linked or most-visited old URLs. Google Search Console or your old analytics will show these.
  2. Run each one through Test patterns and check that the destination is a real, published beehiiv post.
  3. Also test pages that shouldn’t redirect (home, subscribe, custom pages).
  4. Build the rule, publish, and then open a few old URLs in a private browser window.

Lite’s 10 or Pro’s unlimited?

  • Lite (10) is likely enough if your old archive uses one or a few consistent patterns and the slugs match. A few wildcard rules plus a few simple ones for special cases fit within 10. beehiiv’s docs don’t say outright that a wildcard rule counts as one of the 10, or whether the 404 redirect counts. They describe the limit as the number of redirects you create, so one rule should mean one slot, but confirm in your account.
  • Pro (unlimited) makes sense if your new slugs don’t match the old ones and you need a rule per post, or if your archive mixes many URL formats.
  • No CSV upload is documented. beehiiv’s article describes building redirects one at a time. One beehiiv user on Reddit reported in March 2026 that support told them redirects can’t be imported from a CSV (r/beehiiv thread, unofficial). Plan your time if you need hundreds of rules.

Planning a full launch on beehiiv? Our free Newsletter Launch Checklist covers the setup steps to check before your first send.

Plan prices (context)

Redirects need Lite or Pro. From beehiiv’s pricing page, checked October 19, 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

The pricing table lists Site redirects as — on Free, 10 on Lite, and Unlimited on Pro and Enterprise. Custom domains are on Lite and up. Free is $0 up to 2,500 subscribers but has neither. beehiiv’s FAQ says 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:

  • Whether a wildcard rule counts as one of Lite’s 10 redirects, and whether the 404 redirect counts.
  • Which rule wins when several match a path, and whether real pages and posts take priority over a matching wildcard.
  • Trailing slashes, uppercase letters, and query strings (for example, ?utm_source=) in old URLs.
  • What slug the content importer gives imported posts, and whether it keeps the original slug.
  • Bulk or CSV import of redirects. It isn’t mentioned in the docs.
  • How to do the “bulk 301 redirects” beehiiv’s Ghost article mentions, beyond wildcards.
  • Whether redirects work during beehiiv’s own free trial of Lite or Pro.

Our take

beehiiv’s redirect tool covers the basics a migration needs: 301 redirects, wildcard patterns with $1-style captures, a test sandbox, and a 404 fallback. For most archives, the plan question comes down to slugs. If your imported posts keep their old post names, a few wildcard rules on Lite can likely cover the whole archive, which is what beehiiv’s own date-based and /c/* examples show. If the slugs changed, you’ll need a rule per post, and that means Pro or a short list of your best posts. Substack movers with a custom domain can usually skip all of this.

Try beehiiv · Import your archive · Set up a custom domain · Migrate Substack → beehiiv · beehiiv pricing explained

Sources

All sources below were re-checked October 19, 2026.