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Beehiiv has four real revenue streams: paid subscriptions, the ad network, boosts, and premium tier upsells. Most creators activate one and miss 60% of the revenue. Here is the order to turn them on and the configuration that compounds.
Who this is forCreators past 2,500 subscribers thinking about monetization, or operators already on Beehiiv who turned on paid subs but have not configured ad network or boosts. If your list is past 5,000 with under $500/mo of revenue, this tutorial will close the gap.
What you'll need
Step 1
Monetize → Subscriptions → Connect Stripe. Authorize via OAuth. Set the currency you will price in (cannot change after live subscribers exist).
Open Beehiiv → Monetize → Subscriptions (or Paid Subscriptions, depending on UI version).
Click "Connect Stripe." Authorize via Stripe OAuth — Beehiiv connects to your existing Stripe account rather than creating a new one.
Set the default currency. USD is standard for global audiences. Choose EUR/GBP only if your subscriber base is 80%+ in one region.
Currency cannot be changed after the first paid subscriber. Get it right now.
Beehiiv adds itself as a Connected Account in Stripe. You can verify in Stripe → Settings → Connected Accounts → Beehiiv.
Step 2
Monetize → Subscriptions → Pricing → set monthly, annual, and (optional) founding member tiers. Standard: $7-15/mo, $70-150/yr, $250-500 founding.
Open Beehiiv → Monetize → Subscriptions → Pricing.
Add a Monthly tier. $7-12/mo is standard for niche newsletters; $15-25/mo for high-value B2B.
Add an Annual tier at a 15-20% discount vs. monthly. This optimizes for cash flow + reduces churn.
Optionally add a Founding Member tier ($250-500/yr or one-time) for early-adopter perks (Slack access, 1:1 calls, lifetime locked-in rate).
Set the tier names — "Premium," "Pro," and "Founding Member" are conventional. Custom names are fine but conventional names reduce friction.
Toggle "Allow free trials" if you want — 7-14 days converts well, 30 days does not (trials past 14 days lose urgency).
Step 3
Monetize → Subscriptions → Paywall Settings. Choose hard paywall, soft paywall, or per-post paywall. Decide what is free vs premium.
Open Beehiiv → Monetize → Subscriptions → Paywall.
Three paywall modes: (a) Hard — premium content fully gated, (b) Soft — preview shown, full content gated below the fold, (c) Per-post — you tag each post as free or premium.
Soft + per-post is the highest-converting combination. The preview hook reels readers in; the per-post tag gives you flexibility to publish free content for growth and premium content for revenue.
Set the paywall message — what subscribers see when they hit a gated post. Test 2-3 message variants and check which converts best.
Define your free/premium ratio. 70/30 free/premium is the conversion sweet spot for most niches. 50/50 conversions higher but slows free-list growth.
Step 4
Automations → New Automation → trigger on engaged free subscribers → send an upgrade pitch. Most upgrades come from the 4-7 emails after they hit a paywall.
Open Beehiiv → Automations → New Automation.
Trigger: "Subscriber opened X posts" OR "Subscriber tried to read premium post." Beehiiv supports engagement-based triggers in Scale/Max plans.
First upgrade email: send 7-14 days after the engagement trigger. Focus on the specific value the premium tier delivers, not generic "subscribe for more."
Second upgrade email: 14-21 days later. Include a testimonial or social proof from a current premium subscriber.
Third (optional): annual plan upsell at a 20% discount — works well 60+ days into the relationship.
Activate. Monitor conversion in Automations → [automation] → Analytics → Conversion Rate.
Step 5
Monetize → Ad Network → opt in. Beehiiv matches you with advertisers and you earn revenue per ad placed. Minimum requirements apply.
Open Beehiiv → Monetize → Ad Network.
Click "Apply to join." Beehiiv reviews based on subscriber count (typically 1,000+), open rate (typically 30%+), and content quality.
Once approved, set your ad placement preferences: top of email, middle, bottom, or all three.
Set the verticals you will accept (e.g., SaaS, finance, e-com, lifestyle). You can also block specific competitor brands.
Beehiiv assigns ads automatically. Each ad pays based on click-through rate — typically $5-15 CPM for niche audiences, $20-50 CPM for premium B2B.
Ads run for one-week campaigns. You can preview each ad before it sends; reject if it does not fit your audience.
Step 6
Growth → Boosts → set a per-subscriber payout. You pay other publications to recommend you; Beehiiv handles the billing.
Open Beehiiv → Growth → Boosts.
Set your offer: how much you will pay per confirmed subscriber. Typical range is $1-3 per sub for general niches, $3-8 for B2B/finance.
Set a monthly budget cap so you do not blow past your customer-acquisition-cost target.
Choose the recommending publications you want — Beehiiv shows verified publications in your category with audience size and historical sub quality.
Boosted subscribers are tagged in your audience as "from Boost" — track LTV separately from organic. Boost-sourced subscribers typically have 60-70% the LTV of organic, so adjust pricing accordingly.
Step 7
Analytics → Revenue → monitor MRR, churn, ad revenue, and boost spend weekly. Adjust pricing or paywall based on data.
Open Beehiiv → Analytics → Revenue.
Track these every week: MRR (subscription revenue), Ad Revenue (from Ad Network), Boost Spend (subtract this), Churn Rate (paid sub cancellations).
If churn is over 7%/mo, the premium tier is not delivering enough perceived value. Either upgrade the content or lower the price.
If conversion from free to paid is under 1%, the paywall or upgrade automation needs work — usually a softer paywall or a stronger value proposition in the upgrade email.
If Ad Network CPM is below $5, your open rate or audience quality is the bottleneck — focus on engagement before chasing more advertisers.
Net Revenue = MRR + Ad Revenue - Boost Spend. This is the real number to optimize.
Common mistakes
Pricing too low at launch
What goes wrong: Setting paid subs at $5/mo when your audience would pay $12 caps your MRR at 40% of potential. A 1,000-paid-sub list at $5 is $5K MRR; at $12 it is $12K MRR. Raising the price later requires grandfathering old subs and triggers a 5-10% churn event.
How to avoid: Price at $10-15/mo for niche newsletters, $15-25/mo for high-value B2B. Easier to launch high and discount than to launch low and raise.
Hard paywall before building trust
What goes wrong: Locking content fully behind a paywall in week one means no free content gets shared, no organic growth happens, and free-to-paid conversion stays under 0.5%. List growth stalls.
How to avoid: Use a soft paywall + per-post tagging. Publish 70% free content for the first 6 months. After 5,000 free subs, ratio can shift to 50/50.
Skipping the upgrade automation
What goes wrong: Free-to-paid conversion drops from 2-3% to 0.3-0.7% without dedicated upgrade emails. On a 5,000 free-sub list, that is the difference between $1K MRR and $3K MRR.
How to avoid: Build a 3-email upgrade automation triggered by engagement signals. Activate it before you grow past 2,000 free subscribers.
Joining the Ad Network with a low open rate
What goes wrong: Beehiiv matches ads based on engagement. A 22% open rate gets you $3-5 CPM ads (essentially nothing). A 40% open rate gets you $20-40 CPM ads. The same number of subscribers can yield 6-10x the ad revenue.
How to avoid: Improve open rate first (better subject lines, clean inactives, lift sender reputation). Apply to the Ad Network when consistently above 35% open rate.
Overspending on Boosts
What goes wrong: Boost-sourced subs convert to paid at 30-40% the rate of organic subs. Paying $3/sub for low-LTV subscribers can burn $500-2,000/mo with no revenue offset.
How to avoid: Cap Boost spend at 10-20% of your monthly Ad Network + Subscription revenue. Track Boost-sourced LTV separately and pause if it stays below your CAC target.
Personal Stripe instead of business Stripe
What goes wrong: Mixed personal/business income causes tax filing pain at $10K+ MRR. Migrating Stripe accounts later requires cancelling and re-creating every paid sub — a 20-40% churn event.
How to avoid: Connect a business Stripe (or upgrade your personal Stripe to a business legal entity) before the first paid subscriber.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to set up the Beehiiv Ad Network and actually earn from it
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Monetization is where the compounding decisions sit. Wrong pricing or paywall on day one costs $1K-3K/mo by month six. A newsletter specialist will model pricing against your engagement curve, configure paywall + upgrade automation, and set up Ad Network + Boosts together — typically $400-900 of one-time work at $14-16/hr.
See specialist rates
Paid subscriptions work at any size — even 100 subscribers can convert to 5-10 paid if the value is high. Ad Network has a soft minimum around 1,000 subscribers and 30% open rate. Boosts works at any size but the math only makes sense if you have a clear upgrade funnel.
Both, unless you have a strong reason not to. Paid subs are higher-revenue-per-subscriber and create durable MRR. Ads are lower-effort and let you monetize the long tail of free subs. Most six-figure Beehiiv operators run both.
Realistic ranges: 5,000 subs → $500-2,000/mo net. 25,000 subs → $5K-15K/mo. 100,000 subs → $25K-80K/mo. Variance is massive based on niche, engagement, and how all four revenue streams are configured. Niches like finance and B2B SaaS earn 3-5x consumer/lifestyle.
Yes — Beehiiv has a Substack import that includes paid subscribers. Their Stripe subscriptions migrate without re-billing. Covered in detail in the Substack-to-Beehiiv migration tutorial.
Paid subscriptions: Beehiiv takes 0% (Stripe takes 2.9% + 30¢) on Max plan, low single-digit % on Scale. Ad Network: Beehiiv pays out monthly per ad placement — no split disclosed publicly. Boosts: you pay the recommending publication directly, Beehiiv takes a small platform fee.
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