Best Newsletter Platform for Beginners in 2026

If you’re starting your first newsletter, the “best” platform is the one that lets you start free, grow for a long time before paying, and doesn’t box you in if you later want to charge readers or automate your emails. The five platforms beginners ask about most, Kit, beehiiv, Substack, Mailchimp, and HubSpot, differ most on exactly those points.

This comparison is based on each vendor’s official pricing pages and help docs, first published September 27, 2026 and re-checked on October 7, 2026. Between our September 27 and October 1 checks, beehiiv replaced its Launch, Scale, and Max plans with Free, Lite, and Pro (plus Enterprise) and changed its prices and plan features; this article uses the current names and prices. Prices are in USD and change often, so confirm on each vendor’s site before you sign up.

How we researched this: We haven’t tested these five platforms hands-on for this article. Everything below comes from official documentation and pricing pages.

About our links: Kit, beehiiv, and HubSpot links on this page are affiliate links. Substack and Mailchimp are linked directly; we don’t earn anything from them. Our recommendations would be the same either way.

Quick picks

Best for most beginners: Kit. The free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, and you can sell a paid newsletter or digital products without upgrading.
Best if you want a publication website: beehiiv. The Free plan (up to 2,500 subscribers) includes a website builder, podcast hosting, and a welcome email. Custom domains start on the paid Lite plan.
Best if you want zero cost and zero setup: Substack. Free to publish at any size; it takes 10% only if you charge.
Best if you’re a business that needs a CRM: HubSpot. Email is one part of a bigger sales and marketing platform.
Mailchimp is widely known, but its free plan is capped at 250 contacts, the smallest of the five.

Side-by-side comparison

	Kit	beehiiv	Substack	Mailchimp	HubSpot
Free plan	Up to 10,000 subscribers	Up to 2,500 subscribers	Free at any size	250 contacts	Free tools, up to 2 users
Sending on free plan	No sending limits	Unlimited sends	Not stated in the cost article we checked	500 sends/month (max 250/day)	2,000 sends/month, with HubSpot branding
Automations on free plan	No (Creator+)	Welcome email only (custom automations on Lite+)	Not covered here	Not covered here	1 automated action
Cheapest paid plan	Creator: $39/mo, or $33/mo yearly (1,000 subs)	Lite: $59/mo, or $49/mo yearly (1,000 subs)	No plan fee	Essentials: from $13/mo	Marketing Hub Starter: from $7/mo/seat (promo; $20 regular)
Paid newsletter fee	3.5% + 30¢, card processing included; any plan	0% (Stripe fees apply); Lite+	10% + Stripe fees	Not listed on the pricing page	Not listed on the Marketing Hub pricing page
Built for	Creators selling products and newsletters	Newsletter publications	Writers who want a simple, free start	Small-business email marketing	Businesses running sales and marketing in one CRM

Sources: Kit pricing, beehiiv pricing, Substack: How much does Substack cost?, Mailchimp pricing, HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing.

Before comparing features, it helps to know which ones matter in your first year:

A free plan that lasts. Most newsletters grow slowly at first. A plan that stays free to a few thousand subscribers means you can find your voice before paying anything.
A signup form or page. Every platform here has one. Kit and beehiiv also include a newsletter website on their free plans.
A welcome email. An automatic “thanks for subscribing” email is the first automation most writers want. beehiiv’s free plan includes a single welcome email; Kit’s email sequences and beehiiv’s custom automations are paid features.
A path to earning money that doesn’t eat your revenue. Compare how each platform charges once you have paying readers.
An easy way to leave. You own your list. Kit, beehiiv, Substack, and Mailchimp all document how to export or import subscribers (see our Substack to beehiiv and Mailchimp to Kit guides).

Kit: best overall for beginners

Free plan: up to 10,000 subscribers, 1 user, unlimited landing pages, forms, and broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, a newsletter feed and website, and selling digital products and subscriptions. Kit says there are no sending limits on any plan.

What you’ll eventually pay for: email sequences and visual automations (a welcome series, for example), RSS-to-email, and removing Kit branding all require Creator, which starts at $39/month (or $33/month billed yearly) for 1,000 subscribers. Paid plans come with a 14-day free trial, no card required, and Kit offers a free migration service on paid plans.

Earning money: you can run a paid newsletter on the Free plan. Kit’s fee is 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction, including card processing.

Watch out for: paid prices follow your list size, so upgrading at 8,000 subscribers costs $119/month on Creator, not $39. If you know you’ll want automations, upgrade earlier rather than later.

Best for: beginners who want the most room to grow for free, or who plan to sell a course, ebook, or paid tier early. Full details in our Kit pricing guide.

Try Kit free

Source: Kit pricing, checked October 7, 2026.

Free plan: up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, the website builder with templates, a welcome email, the recommendation network, podcast hosting for 1 show, 1 publication, and 1 team seat. beehiiv says no credit card is required.

What you’ll eventually pay for: a custom domain, custom automations, paid subscriptions, the Ad Network, the referral program, and A/B testing all start on Lite: $59/month (or $49/month billed yearly) for 1,000 subscribers. Removing beehiiv branding requires Pro, from $109/month (or $95/month billed yearly).

Earning money: beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription revenue; you pay Stripe’s processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, per beehiiv’s FAQ). But paid subscriptions require Lite.

Watch out for: the free plan is a quarter the size of Kit’s, it doesn’t include a custom domain, and charging readers means paying for Lite.

Best for: writers who think of their newsletter as a publication, with an archive that works like a blog, and who expect to earn from ads or paid subscriptions once they grow. Full details in our beehiiv pricing guide.

Try beehiiv free

Source: beehiiv pricing, checked October 7, 2026.

Substack: simplest free start (non-affiliate)

Cost: Substack’s help center says publishing is free no matter how many subscribers you have.

Earning money: if you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack keeps 10% of subscription revenue, and Stripe charges a card fee (2.9% + $0.30 for US cards) plus a Billing fee on recurring payments (0.7%, per the same article).

Watch out for: the 10% cut grows with your revenue. Using beehiiv’s prices as a comparison, Substack’s 10% equals beehiiv Lite’s $59 monthly fee once you earn $590 a month in paid subscriptions (at 1,000 total subscribers, monthly billing). Substack does let you export your posts and email list, so you’re not locked in.

Best for: writers who want to start today without choosing plans or settings, and who aren’t sure they’ll ever charge.

Mailchimp: familiar, but a small free plan (non-affiliate)

Free plan: Mailchimp’s pricing page says the Free plan includes 1 seat, 1 audience with a maximum of 250 contacts, and up to 500 sends per month (250 max per day). Sending is paused if you exceed the contact or send limit.

Paid plans: Essentials starts at $13/month and Standard at $20/month (after a 14-day free trial), at the lowest contact tier; prices rise with contacts. Essentials allows monthly sends of 10x your contacts; Standard allows 12x. Mailchimp notes overages apply if you exceed contact or send limits on paid plans.

Watch out for: 250 contacts is a very small ceiling for a newsletter. Mailchimp’s plans are aimed at businesses, and its pricing page doesn’t present paid newsletter subscriptions as a feature.

Best for: small businesses that already use Mailchimp elsewhere, or that mainly send promotional emails to customers. If you’re moving off Mailchimp, see our Mailchimp to Kit guide.

HubSpot: for businesses, not hobby newsletters

Free tools: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub pricing page says the free plan is free for up to 2 users with no credit card. The free email marketing tool allows 2,000 email sends per calendar month, with HubSpot branding, and email automation is limited to 1 automated action.

Paid plans: Marketing Hub Starter showed a promotional price of $7/month per seat billed annually or $10/month per seat billed monthly, against a regular price of $20/month per seat. HubSpot labels this “special Starter pricing” for new customers only, available for a limited time. Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts, removes HubSpot branding from email, adds simple marketing automation (up to 10 automated actions), and allows monthly email sends of 5x your marketing contact tier. Professional starts at $800/month billed annually ($890/month paid monthly) and requires a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee.

Watch out for: HubSpot prices by marketing contacts and seats, and its FAQ says you can’t downgrade your contact tier until your contract renews. It’s a CRM first; there’s no paid-newsletter feature on the Marketing Hub pricing page.

Best for: a business (a consultancy, agency, SaaS, or local service) that wants its newsletter connected to a CRM, forms, live chat, and sales pipeline. For a solo writer, it’s more platform than you need.

See HubSpot’s free tools

Which should you choose?

Your situation	Best starting point (based on documented features and pricing)
First newsletter, want to grow free as long as possible	Kit Free (up to 10,000 subscribers)
Want a newsletter website and archive that works like a blog	beehiiv Free (custom domain on Lite)
Want to launch a paid tier right away without a monthly fee	Kit Free (3.5% + 30¢) or Substack (10%)
Expect meaningful paid-subscription revenue	beehiiv Lite (0% take rate; you pay Stripe’s fees)
Want a free automated welcome email	beehiiv Free includes a single welcome email; HubSpot Free allows 1 automated action. None of these include a full multi-email series free
Business that needs CRM, forms, and sales tools	HubSpot
Already on Mailchimp with a small customer list	Mailchimp, or move to Kit/beehiiv once you outgrow 250 contacts

Our recommendation

For most beginners, start with Kit’s free plan. It gives you the longest free runway (up to 10,000 subscribers), no sending limits, a website and landing pages, and the option to charge readers without upgrading. When you want a welcome sequence or automations, Creator is the next step.

Choose beehiiv instead if a publication website matters more to you than list size, or if you’re confident you’ll grow into ads or paid subscriptions. On price, Kit Creator is cheaper at small list sizes ($39 vs. beehiiv Lite’s $59 per month at 1,000 subscribers on monthly billing). The two cost the same at 10,000 and 25,000 subscribers on monthly billing ($139 and $199), and beehiiv Lite is cheaper on the larger tiers both pages show (for example, $299 per month at 50,000 vs. Kit Creator’s $319 at 45,000). beehiiv also takes 0% of paid subscriptions.

Choose Substack if you want the simplest possible start and don’t mind giving up 10% of any paid revenue later. It’s a genuinely good free option, and we don’t earn anything by recommending it.

Choose HubSpot only if your newsletter is part of a business that needs a CRM. Skip Mailchimp’s free plan for a newsletter; 250 contacts is too small to grow into.

For a deeper head-to-head of the two main creator platforms, read Kit vs beehiiv for solo newsletter writers.

Source: Kit pricing and beehiiv pricing, checked October 7, 2026.

FAQ

Based on setup requirements, Substack asks the least of you: it’s free to publish at any size and has no plans to choose. Kit and beehiiv also have free plans (beehiiv’s FAQ says no credit card is required), and both include signup pages and a newsletter website.

For list size, Kit: up to 10,000 subscribers with no sending limits. beehiiv’s free plan covers 2,500 subscribers but includes a fuller publication website and a welcome email (no custom domain). Substack is free at any size but takes 10% of paid subscriptions. Mailchimp’s free plan stops at 250 contacts.

On Kit Free, yes: you can sell paid subscriptions and digital products (3.5% + 30¢ per transaction, processing included). On Substack, yes (10% plus Stripe fees). On beehiiv, paid subscriptions and the Ad Network require the Lite plan or higher.

Is Mailchimp good for newsletters?

Mailchimp is built for business email marketing. Its free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 sends per month, which is limiting for a growing newsletter. Paid plans start at $13/month (Essentials).

Source: Mailchimp pricing, checked October 7, 2026.

Is HubSpot free for email marketing?

HubSpot’s free tools include email marketing with 2,000 sends per calendar month and HubSpot branding, for up to 2 users. Removing branding and sending more requires Marketing Hub Starter or higher.

Can I switch platforms later?

Yes. Substack and Mailchimp document how to export your subscriber list, and Kit and beehiiv document how to import one, including step-by-step guides for moving from Mailchimp and Substack. Kit also offers free migration help on paid plans.

Sources

All checked October 7, 2026.

Kit: Pricing and plans, including the subscriber slider, comparison table, and FAQ
beehiiv: Pricing, including the subscriber slider, plan cards (Free, Lite, Pro, Enterprise), feature comparison table, and FAQ
Substack: How much does Substack cost?
Substack: How do I export my email list on Substack? and How do I export my posts?
Kit: How to import a subscriber list and Migrating from Mailchimp to Kit
beehiiv: How to migrate from Substack to beehiiv
Mailchimp: Marketing plans and pricing
Mailchimp: View or Export Your Contacts
HubSpot: Marketing Hub pricing, including plan cards, feature comparison, and FAQ

The original September 27, 2026 version of this article used beehiiv’s previous plan names and prices (Launch, Scale, and Max). beehiiv’s pricing page showed the new Free, Lite, and Pro plans when we re-checked on October 1, 2026, and this October 7, 2026 update reflects them. The Kit vs beehiiv price comparison in our recommendation changed as a result: beehiiv is no longer cheaper than Kit at 10,000 subscribers on monthly billing.