Build a Newsletter business for $25/mo

Sends the newsletter, hosts the archive, runs the signup form, and handles unsubscribes.

Free up to 2,500 subscribers, with no send caps and no daily limits — the only ESP at the free tier that won't make you choose between launching and getting paid. The editor is built for newsletter writing (not transactional email), referrals are baked in, and the analytics show what you actually want: opens, clicks, unsubscribes, growth source.

• Beehiiv hosts your archive on a beehiiv.com subdomain by default. Custom domain requires the paid tier — most readers won't notice, but it's a brand point.
• Free tier branding includes a small Beehiiv logo in the footer of every email. Removable on paid only.
• The recommendations network is opt-in but on by default — review the settings before you accidentally cross-promote a list you've never read.

Serves the marketing site, an archive view, and any long-form essays as fully-static HTML.

Astro builds out to plain HTML/CSS, which Cloudflare Pages serves at the edge for free. No serverless functions in the hot path means no cold starts and no per-invocation costs. Build-time content collections handle the markdown for essays; you write in your editor, push to git, the site updates.

• Static doesn't mean no JS — Astro hydrates components on demand. Watch the bundle for dependencies that pull in React/Vue when a vanilla-JS island would do.
• Cloudflare Pages' free tier has a 500-builds-per-month cap. Multi-author teams committing constantly will hit it — most newsletter authors won't.
• RSS generation is your job. Build it once with @astrojs/rss; readers will appreciate it more than you'd expect.

A second ESP, primarily for welcome sequences and the disaster-recovery scenario where your primary gets suspended.

An ESP that doesn't know your list exists yet is a dead ESP at the moment of crisis. $9/mo keeps an account warm with a synced subscriber list and a working welcome automation. The day Beehiiv flags you for sending content they disagree with, you're not starting from zero — you're already running.

• Cross-ESP list sync is manual or via Zapier — there's no native Beehiiv → MailerLite pipe. Set up a weekly export-import or a Zap, and confirm it actually works.
• Sending from MailerLite while Beehiiv is alive will look like duplicate sends to subscribers. Use it for automations only until disaster strikes.
• MailerLite's deliverability is solid but lower than premium-tier dedicated transactional providers. Marketing-shaped emails are fine; transactional belongs on Resend.

A .com or branded domain, registered for a year, amortized to ~$1/mo.

Porkbun and Cloudflare Registrar both register .com at registrar cost (~$10–12/year) with WHOIS privacy free. You'll point the apex at Cloudflare Pages and a CNAME at Beehiiv's email subdomain (mail.yourdomain.com) for branded sender addresses.

• Branded sender domain (sending from you@yourdomain.com instead of you@beehiiv.com) requires DNS records Beehiiv documents. Skip the setup and your open rates drop quietly.
• Don't register parked domains at GoDaddy — their renewal pricing climbs every year. Registrar-cost providers stay flat.
• .io, .dev, .news domains are appealing for newsletter brands but renew at higher rates than .com. Read the renewal price before committing.

Embeds signup forms, polls, and reader surveys without writing form-handling code.

Free Tally is generous; Pro at $9/mo unlocks custom domains, removed branding, and webhook integrations to push form data into Beehiiv. Building the same thing yourself in HTML + a serverless endpoint is a half-day of work that breaks the moment you change ESPs.

• Forms hosted on Tally's domain look like Tally's domain — sometimes that's fine, sometimes that's brand-corrosive. Use the custom-domain feature on Pro for anything front-facing.
• Webhook integrations need a paid Beehiiv account to receive — on the free Beehiiv plan you'll be exporting CSVs. Plan accordingly.
• Conditional logic and calculation features are powerful and easy to abuse. Surveys with 40 conditional branches break in subtle ways.