MailerLite just changed its pricing again. On July 1, 2026, the free plan dropped from 500 subscribers to 250, the monthly email cap on that free plan fell from 12,000 to 2,500, and the paid Growing Business and Advanced plans were renamed Comfort and Power with price increases of roughly 10 to 30 percent at every subscriber tier. If you're running a newsletter on MailerLite, your bill either just went up, or you're a lot closer to hitting a wall than you were two weeks ago.

This is the second cut to MailerLite's free tier in under a year. The first came in September 2025, when the free plan dropped from 1,000 subscribers to 500. Two cuts in ten months is a pattern, not a one-off adjustment, and it's worth asking whether the platform you picked when you had zero subscribers is still the right one now that you're building a real list.

This guide gives you the honest answer. Not "Beehiiv is cheaper, switch now" — because at smaller list sizes, it isn't. It gives you the actual dollar comparison at every subscriber tier, the specific growth and monetization tools MailerLite doesn't have that Beehiiv does, and the exact steps to move your subscribers and content without losing anyone.

If you want to start comparing platforms directly, Beehiiv's free Launch plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends and no credit card required — worth having open in another tab as you read the numbers below.

Three changes hit at once. First, the free plan's subscriber ceiling dropped from 500 to 250 active subscribers — a newsletter that was comfortably free two weeks ago may already be over the new limit. Second, the free plan's monthly sending cap fell from 12,000 emails to 2,500, an 80 percent cut that affects anyone sending more than one or two campaigns a week to a modest list. Third, the paid plans were renamed: Growing Business became Comfort, Advanced became Power, and both got more expensive at nearly every subscriber tier.

If you're on a legacy MailerLite plan, you may not see these changes reflected immediately, since some existing subscriptions are grandfathered for a period. But new signups, upgrades, and most existing free accounts are already on the new structure.

None of this makes MailerLite a bad product. It's still a genuinely capable platform. But it does mean the math you ran when you first signed up is out of date, and that's exactly the moment worth re-evaluating platform choice — before you build another year of content and subscribers on a foundation you haven't re-checked.

Here's the direct comparison using MailerLite's Power plan — the tier that most closely matches what Beehiiv's Scale plan includes, since both unlock full monetization, unlimited automations, and unlimited digital products — against Beehiiv Scale, at the same subscriber counts.

At 1,000 subscribers, MailerLite Power runs $39 a month. Beehiiv Scale runs $43 a month. MailerLite is $4 a month cheaper here.

At 2,500 subscribers, MailerLite Power runs $49 a month. Beehiiv Scale runs $61 a month. MailerLite is still cheaper, by $12 a month.

At 5,000 subscribers, MailerLite Power runs $69 a month. Beehiiv Scale runs $78 a month. MailerLite remains cheaper, by $9 a month.

At 10,000 subscribers, MailerLite Power runs $129 a month. Beehiiv Scale runs $96 a month. This is the crossover point — Beehiiv is now $33 a month cheaper, and the gap widens from here as your list keeps growing, since MailerLite's per-tier jumps get steeper at scale (Power runs $179 at 15,000 subscribers and $389 at 50,000) while Beehiiv's pricing curve stays flatter.

If you compare against MailerLite's lower Comfort tier instead of Power, the numbers shift slightly ($19 at 1,000, $33 at 2,500, $49 at 5,000, $89 at 10,000) but Comfort also caps you at 50 active automations and 5 digital products — real limitations for a newsletter business actively monetizing, so Power is the fairer comparison for anyone serious about growth.

The honest bottom line: if pure monthly cost is your only decision factor and your list is under roughly 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers, MailerLite is genuinely the cheaper option, and no comparison article should tell you otherwise. The decision to migrate has to be justified by something beyond price for smaller lists — which is exactly what the next section covers.

On the free tier specifically, the comparison is more clear-cut. Beehiiv's Launch plan covers 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, completely free. MailerLite's free plan, after the July cut, covers 250 subscribers with a hard 2,500-email-per-month sending cap. That's a 10x difference in free subscriber capacity, and MailerLite branding stays on every email regardless. For anyone still validating a newsletter concept before committing to a paid plan, Beehiiv's free plan simply gives more runway.

Price is only half the decision. MailerLite is a genuinely strong general-purpose email marketing tool — built for ecommerce brands, small businesses, and marketers running campaigns and automations. Beehiiv is built specifically around one thing: growing and monetizing a newsletter as a media business. That difference in focus shows up in three tools MailerLite doesn't have at all.

Boosts. Beehiiv lets other newsletters in your niche recommend you to their subscribers, at a cost-per-subscriber you control, typically $1 to $3. You can also earn money recommending other newsletters to your own list. This is a direct, paid subscriber-acquisition channel with a known cost — MailerLite has no equivalent. If you want to actually grow your list beyond organic traffic, this is usually the single highest-leverage tool a small newsletter can access.

A built-in ad network. Beehiiv's ad network, powered by tvScientific, connects your newsletter with advertisers automatically once you're eligible, generating sponsorship revenue without you having to cold-pitch brands yourself. MailerLite has nothing comparable — if you want sponsorship income on MailerLite, you're finding and negotiating every deal manually.

Newsletter-first web publishing. Both platforms let you build a website, but the way each treats it is different. MailerLite's website and blog tools are general-purpose marketing features. Beehiiv treats every single issue you send as a permanent, indexed web page on your own domain by default — your weekly content compounds into an SEO asset automatically, with monetization tools layered directly on top of that same content.

To be fair to MailerLite: it does not take a percentage cut of your paid subscription or digital product revenue — you only pay standard Stripe processing fees (2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction), exactly the same structure Beehiiv uses. This isn't a Substack-style 10 percent tax situation. If revenue share was your only concern, MailerLite is not the problem. The gap is specifically in audience growth tools and built-in monetization infrastructure, not in what MailerLite takes from what you already earn.

Curious what the math looks like once you're already on Beehiiv and approaching a tier upgrade? Here's the full breakdown of when upgrading from Launch to Scale actually pays for itself.

Based on the numbers above, here's a straightforward way to think about the decision.

Stay on MailerLite if: your list is under roughly 5,000 subscribers, cost is your primary concern, you rely heavily on MailerLite-specific features like the appointment booking tool or its ecommerce integrations, and you're not yet actively trying to grow through paid cross-promotion or an ad network.

Migrate to Beehiiv if: you're approaching or past the 10,000-subscriber range where Beehiiv becomes the cheaper option outright, you want Boosts or the ad network as active growth and revenue channels, you're treating your newsletter as the core of your business rather than one marketing channel among several, or the July pricing changes just pushed your free MailerLite list into paid territory anyway — which is the moment worth comparing both options fresh rather than defaulting to whichever plan you already had a card on file for.

Every Friday, The Founder Brief breaks down what's actually working in the newsletter business — real cost comparisons, real numbers, no hype. Subscribe Now →

If migrating makes sense for your situation, creating a free Beehiiv account takes about ten minutes and doesn't require a credit card — you can compare the actual interface against MailerLite before your subscribers ever notice a change.

Step 1: Export your subscribers from MailerLite. In your MailerLite dashboard, go to the Subscribers page, filter to show only Active subscribers, and export them as a CSV. Only migrate active subscribers — bounced, unsubscribed, and spam-complaint contacts don't need to move with you, and bringing them along can hurt your sender reputation on the new platform.

Step 2: Clean the CSV before importing. Open the exported file and rename the subscriber email column header to "EMAIL" so Beehiiv's importer maps it automatically. Remove any custom fields you don't plan to use going forward, and make sure any custom field names match what you intend to set up in Beehiiv.

Step 3: Import into Beehiiv. From Beehiiv's dashboard, go to Settings, then Publication, then Import Subscribers. Upload your cleaned CSV, map the custom fields, and confirm the import. Beehiiv will show you how many subscribers were successfully accepted.

Step 4: Migrate your past content manually. There's currently no direct one-click import tool for MailerLite newsletter content specifically. The reliable method is copying and pasting your past posts from MailerLite into new Beehiiv posts — Beehiiv's editor preserves formatting well, so this is more mechanical than time-consuming. Prioritize your best-performing or most-referenced past issues first rather than migrating everything at once.

Step 5: Set up your welcome sequence before you announce anything. Build your welcome email in Beehiiv and test it end to end before sending a single campaign to your migrated list. This is also the right moment to introduce new subscribers to what's changing, in your own voice, rather than letting the switch feel unexplained.

Step 6: Tell your subscribers directly. Send one email, from MailerLite, informing your list that you're moving platforms and what to expect. Transparency here protects your open rates on the new platform, since subscribers who understand the switch are far less likely to mark your first Beehiiv send as spam.

Step 7: Test with a small segment first. Before sending your first full campaign from Beehiiv, send a test to a small group, or to yourself and a few trusted subscribers, to confirm formatting, links, and images all render as expected.

Step 8: Update your public-facing links. Once you're confident everything works, update your signup forms, social media bios, and website links to point to your new Beehiiv subscribe page.

In fairness, a couple of things are worth knowing before you commit. MailerLite's free and lower tiers include landing page and website limits that are structured differently from Beehiiv's — if you've built out multiple standalone landing pages on MailerLite for different lead magnets or offers, check how many you're actively using before assuming a 1-to-1 replacement on the other side. And if you rely on MailerLite's ecommerce-specific integrations or its appointment booking tool, confirm Beehiiv covers your specific use case, since Beehiiv's feature set is weighted toward newsletter growth and monetization rather than general small-business marketing.

At smaller list sizes, yes. MailerLite's Power plan is cheaper than Beehiiv Scale at 1,000, 2,500, and 5,000 subscribers. The crossover happens around 10,000 subscribers, where Beehiiv Scale ($96/month) becomes cheaper than MailerLite Power ($129/month), and the gap widens as your list grows past that point.

No. MailerLite charges no platform commission on paid newsletters or digital product sales — you only pay standard Stripe processing fees (2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction), the same structure Beehiiv uses. This is different from Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut on top of Stripe fees.

MailerLite cut its free plan from 500 to 250 subscribers, reduced the free plan's monthly email cap from 12,000 to 2,500, and renamed its paid plans from Growing Business and Advanced to Comfort and Power, with price increases of roughly 10 to 30 percent across most subscriber tiers.

Yes, as long as you export and import only your active subscribers, test formatting before sending your first full campaign, and send one direct email from MailerLite letting your list know about the switch before it happens.

Yes, Beehiiv includes a website builder and landing pages as part of every plan, including the free Launch tier. The specific limits and template styles differ from MailerLite's, so it's worth testing your specific use case during your free trial period before fully committing.

Primarily for the built-in growth and monetization tools MailerLite doesn't offer: Boosts, a paid cross-promotion network for acquiring subscribers at a known cost, and a built-in ad network that connects you with sponsors automatically. For creators under about 5,000 subscribers focused purely on cost, MailerLite remains the more affordable choice.

MailerLite's July 2026 pricing changes don't make it a bad platform, but they do make this the right moment to actually check the math instead of assuming your original platform choice still fits. Below roughly 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers, MailerLite genuinely costs less. Past that point, or the moment you want Boosts and an ad network working for you instead of building growth channels from scratch, Beehiiv becomes both the cheaper and more capable option.

Run your own numbers against your actual subscriber count, not the headline price on either pricing page. Beehiiv's free Launch plan is the easiest way to test the difference directly, with no credit card and no commitment.

Every Friday, The Founder Brief breaks down what's working in the newsletter business — real numbers, no hype. Subscribe Now →