Comparison — from the record, 2026-08-29
beehiiv vs Flodesk: monetise the audience or dress the email
OUR PICK
Our pick: beehiiv — free to 2,500 subscribers, and its paid tier is aimed at revenue rather than appearance.
beehiiv's Launch plan is free with no card required, up to 2,500 subscribers, with unlimited email sends. Flodesk's cheapest sending plan is $25 a month at up to 1,000 subscribers. For a newsletter under 2,500 subscribers, beehiiv does the job for nothing — and its paid Scale tier at $43 exists to turn readers into income, which is a different proposition from a nicer template.
The other way: Pick Flodesk if the email is a piece of your brand rather than a business in itself. For visual businesses the editor genuinely earns its keep, and Flodesk's ladder is gentle — $25 to $28 to $54 — where beehiiv jumps from free to $43 to $96.
Try beehiiv free → Not convinced? The full case is below ↓
How to read this page: every number below was read from the vendor’s own public pricing page on the date shown, and the pages are re-checked daily. Currencies differ because that is what each vendor showed an EU visitor. Some links on this page are affiliate links — if you subscribe through one we earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. Per
our method, that never changes a number or a verdict. Source links always point to the vendor’s plain page.
The two pricing pages, side by side
beehiiv — USD, read 2026-08-29
Prices as this vendor showed them to a visitor in the United States — USD. A reader elsewhere may be quoted a different figure — we publish what we were served, never a conversion.
| Plan | Price | Contacts | What the page says |
|---|
| Launch | Free | | |
| Scale | $43/mo | | |
| Max | $96/mo | | |
Source: https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing · read 2026-08-29 (UTC) · Paid prices shown at the up-to-1,000-subscriber slider position and rise with subscriber count. Annual billing saves ~12% (Scale $517/yr, Max $1,151/yr); the annual per-month rates are shown alongside.
Try beehiiv free →
beehiiv quotes USD worldwide — identical figures from our United States, United Kingdom and EU readers, read 2026-08-29.
Flodesk — USD, read 2026-08-29
Prices as this vendor showed them to a visitor in the United States — USD. A reader elsewhere may be quoted a different figure — we publish what we were served, never a conversion.
| Plan | Price | Contacts | What the page says |
|---|
| Lite | $25/mo | | |
| Pro | $28/mo | | |
| Everything | $54/mo | | |
Source: https://flodesk.com/pricing · read 2026-08-29 (UTC) · Prices shown at the up-to-1,000-subscriber tier; monthly rate first, annual per-month rate alongside (annual = ~2 months free). All plans include unlimited email sends; price scales with active subscriber count.
Flodesk quotes USD worldwide — identical figures from our United States, United Kingdom and EU readers, read 2026-08-29.
What the record says
The free tiers set the terms. beehiiv's Launch plan costs nothing, requires no card, and covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends. Flodesk's free option, by its own description, covers forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages and does not include sending. If you have a newsletter and no budget, that is the whole comparison.
Above free they stop competing. beehiiv's Scale plan is $43 a month, or $517 billed annually, which its page frames as saving $71 a year; Max is $96 a month or $1,151 annually. That money buys monetisation — the machinery for a newsletter to earn from advertising, paid subscriptions and referral growth. Flodesk's $25, $28 and $54 tiers buy a better-looking email with unlimited sends, and make no claim to help you sell advertising.
So the decision is not really about price, even though the numbers differ sharply. It is about whether the newsletter is the business. If it is, beehiiv's tools are aimed at your revenue and Flodesk's are aimed at your aesthetics, and $43 against $25 is not the comparison that matters. If the newsletter supports a business that makes money elsewhere — a shop, a studio, a practice — then you are paying beehiiv for machinery you will never switch on.
Both quoted US dollars to our readers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, and both price by list size, so the figures above are anchored to specific subscriber counts rather than being flat rates. beehiiv's are read at the 1,000-subscriber position where its slider opens; Flodesk's are the up-to-1,000 figures its own page publishes. Check each at your own list before deciding.
Beyond the price tag
Free tiers are not equivalent
beehiiv Launch: free, no card, up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends. Flodesk's free option covers forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages but not sending, by its own description. For a newsletter with no budget, only one of these is an option.
The paid ladders
beehiiv: Scale $43/mo or $517 annually (saving $71 by its page's framing); Max $96/mo or $1,151 annually. Flodesk at up to 1,000 subscribers: Lite $25 ($19 annual), Pro $28 ($25), Everything $54 ($49). beehiiv's first paid step is nearly double Flodesk's.
What the paid tiers are for
beehiiv's paid features exist to monetise an audience — advertising, paid subscriptions, referral growth. Flodesk's exist to make the email look designed and lift automation limits. Same category label, different businesses.
Currency
Both quoted US dollars to our readers in all three markets we checked, so neither localises and the figures hold wherever you are reading from.
Questions people actually search
Which is cheaper?
Under 2,500 subscribers, beehiiv, because its Launch plan is free and Flodesk's cheapest sending plan is $25 a month. Once both are paid, Flodesk is cheaper: $25 against beehiiv's $43 at the list sizes we read.
Is beehiiv's free plan really free?
By its own page, yes: no credit card required, up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited email sends, with paid tiers unlocking monetisation, advanced analytics and AI tools. It is one of the more generous free tiers in this part of the market.
Can Flodesk help me make money from a newsletter?
Not in the way beehiiv is built to. Flodesk sells email design and sending; beehiiv sells the apparatus of a newsletter business. If you intend to run advertising or paid subscriptions, that difference matters far more than the $18 a month between them.
Didn't Flodesk have a single flat price?
It did until December 2, 2025, which is the date its own pricing FAQ gives for retiring the flat-rate unlimited plan for new members. Pricing now scales with active subscriber count, which is why we quote it at a named list size.
THE VERDICT, ONE MORE TIME
Our pick: beehiiv — free to 2,500 subscribers, and its paid tier is aimed at revenue rather than appearance.
beehiiv's Launch plan is free with no card required, up to 2,500 subscribers, with unlimited email sends. Flodesk's cheapest sending plan is $25 a month at up to 1,000 subscribers. For a newsletter under 2,500 subscribers, beehiiv does the job for nothing — and its paid Scale tier at $43 exists to turn readers into income, which is a different proposition from a nicer template.
Try beehiiv free →
Every figure above was read from each vendor's own pricing page in a browser on the dates shown beside each table, from United States, United Kingdom and German addresses in turn. Both vendors price by list size; beehiiv's figures are read at the 1,000-subscriber position where its pricing slider opens, and Flodesk's are quoted verbatim from the sentence on its page naming prices for up to 1,000 subscribers. We do not quote list-size brackets we have not read. The method →
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