The short answer
- beehiiv prices by list size: $49/mo for the Lite plan's 1,000-subscriber tier, billed yearly, and more as the list grows. Amazon SES prices by emails sent: $0.10 per 1,000. beehiiv.com
- Marc Lou's beehiiv bill was heading from $1,000 to $4,000 a year. On SES and MongoDB he expects to pay less than $300 a year. x.com
- At beehiiv's 1,000-subscriber price, building your own loses $17 in year one once you count your time. It pays with a big list. the math
- You take on what beehiiv did for you: domain authentication, bounces and complaints, unsubscribe links, and the SES sandbox until AWS approves your account.
- A small list is cheaper on beehiiv's Free plan than anything you build: Free: up to 2,500 subscribers, 1 team seat, unlimited email sends. beehiiv.com
What happened
In October 2026, Marc Lou posted that he had left beehiiv for a newsletter platform he vibe-coded with a few prompts in Claude Opus 5.5: a campaign editor, web archives, an API, list cleanup and deliverability reports. beehiiv had raised its prices for the third time in 2 years, he wrote, and his yearly bill was going from $1,000 to $4,000. x.com
He now sends through Amazon SES, keeps the list in MongoDB, and expects to pay less than $300 a year. His argument: newsletter platforms charge per subscriber, but what actually costs money is each email sent. x.com
He isn't the only one. In September 2026 Pieter Levels listed 14 paid services he had replaced with his own code, from image resizing to uptime monitoring, for about $25,000 a month in savings by his count. levels.io
Why per-subscriber pricing breaks as a list grows
Lists tend to grow. People stop opening but stay subscribed, and a per-subscriber plan bills you for them every month. Mailing people who never open also hurts deliverability, so you pay more for something that works against you.
beehiiv lists $49/mo for the Lite plan's 1,000-subscriber tier, billed yearly; bigger lists are priced by its subscriber selector, which our catalog doesn't capture yet. Sending costs follow what you send instead. On Amazon SES, one issue a week (about 4 a month) costs: beehiiv.com
| Subscribers | Emails a month | Amazon SES a month |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 aws.amazon.com | 4,000 aws.amazon.com | $0.40 aws.amazon.com |
| 10,000 aws.amazon.com | 40,000 aws.amazon.com | $4 aws.amazon.com |
| 50,000 aws.amazon.com | 200,000 aws.amazon.com | $20 aws.amazon.com |
| 100,000 aws.amazon.com | 400,000 aws.amazon.com | $40 aws.amazon.com |
What it costs to run your own
Stackcut's recipe for leaving beehiiv now includes the build path: your own app sends through SES and keeps the list in a database you already run. At beehiiv's 1,000-subscriber price, with 6 hours to build and half an hour a month of upkeep at $50 an hour, it loses $17 in year one. At that size, beehiiv's Free plan or Kit's free plan costs less. These figures are modeled, not measured savings. the math
At a bill like Marc Lou's it flips. For a $333 monthly bill and 256,000 emails a month, Stackcut models about $26 a month of SES sending and roughly $3,000 saved in year one, after setup and upkeep time. recipe
SES has no editor, archive or subscriber list. Those are the parts a coding agent builds, and the parts you then maintain.
What you take on
- Domain authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your sending domain, or your issues land in spam.
- The SES sandbox: a new account can send 200 messages a day, to verified addresses only, until AWS approves your request for production access. docs.aws.amazon.com
- Bounces, complaints and unsubscribes: process them, or AWS can pause your sending.
- An unsubscribe link in every issue, and a postal address where the law asks for one.
- No ad network, referral program or paid subscriptions unless you build them.
- Upkeep: you own the bugs, the scheduled jobs and every change after the first build.
How to move, with a coding agent
- Export from beehiiv first: subscribers and posts come as CSV files, and the download links expire after 24 hours. Stackcut cancel guide: beehiiv
- Verify your sending domain in Amazon SES and request production access; AWS says it usually answers within a day. docs.aws.amazon.com
- Have your agent build the pieces: a subscribers table, an editor, a send job that calls SES, public archive pages, unsubscribe and bounce handling, and a nightly job that marks long-inactive subscribers dormant after one last re-engagement email.
- Send to yourself and a few seed inboxes, then to a small slice of the list, before everyone.
- Send one last issue from beehiiv pointing to the new archive, then downgrade to Free rather than delete: downgrading keeps the account and its content. Stackcut cancel guide: beehiiv
When to stay on beehiiv
- Your list fits the Free plan: Free: up to 2,500 subscribers, 1 team seat, unlimited email sends. beehiiv.com
- You earn from its ad network, boosts, referrals or paid subscriptions.
- Nobody on the team wants to own deliverability or look after the code.
Check your own numbers
Every Stackcut number above comes from the Creator newsletter recipe, which prices each way out at the plan, bill and volume you give it. Ask your agent with the Stackcut MCP server connected, or open the recipe and the beehiiv cancel page. The savings are modeled from public list prices, not guaranteed.
FAQ
Is building your own newsletter cheaper than beehiiv?
Not for a small list. At beehiiv's 1,000-subscriber price it loses $17 in year one once your time counts, and beehiiv's Free plan covers small lists. It pays off when your bill grows with a big list, because SES charges per email, not per subscriber. These figures are modeled, not measured savings. the math
What is Amazon SES?
Amazon Simple Email Service is AWS's email-sending service. It charges per email sent, $0.10 per 1,000 with no monthly fee, and has no editor, archive or subscriber list: you build those. aws.amazon.com
Can I keep my beehiiv archive?
Export your posts as CSV before you leave (the link lasts 24 hours) and publish them on your own archive pages. Downgrading to beehiiv's Free plan instead of deleting the account keeps it and its content. Stackcut cancel guide: beehiiv
Step-by-step cancel pages
One page per service: every way it can bill you, the steps, what to export first and cheaper ways to keep it, from the company's own help pages.
Keep reading
Price your own newsletter
Open the recipe
Creator newsletter: every way out of beehiiv, priced at the tier you name, with what each path covers and what you take on.
Or ask your agent
Connect the Stackcut MCP server (https://stackcut.io/mcp, no API key) and ask: “I pay for beehiiv. Would building my own newsletter on Amazon SES save money? Ask for my actual bill, subscriber count, email volume and maintenance time first.”
find_alternatives({
"vendor": "beehiiv",
"monthly_spend_usd": 333,
"usage": { "contacts": 64000, "emails_per_month": 256000 },
"features_used": ["Newsletter sending", "Hosted website"]
})