Beehiiv

Beehiiv is a newsletter and publishing platform built by a team that included former Morning Brew engineers, and it's designed around the mechanics of growing an audience rather than just sending emails. It handles writing and editing, subscriber management, list segmentation, and analytics, and it bundles in monetization tools like paid subscriptions, a built-in ad network (Beehiiv Ad Network) that connects publishers with advertisers based on subscriber count and engagement, and a referral program that rewards readers for sharing an issue.

It's aimed at independent writers, media companies, and businesses running newsletters as a growth or revenue channel, not just a broadcast list. The referral and recommendation network (where beehiiv publications cross-promote each other) is one of its more distinctive features, along with the custom website builder that lets publishers run their whole site, archive, and subscription paywall on the platform instead of stitching together separate tools.

Compared to older email tools like Mailchimp or ConvertKit, beehiiv leans harder into the idea that a newsletter is a media business: it has editorial tools like AI writing assistance and A/B testing, but also boost/monetization features (the ad marketplace and cross-promotion network) that are less common elsewhere. It's grown quickly among indie writers and small media startups since launching in 2021, positioning itself as an alternative to Substack for people who want more control over design, monetization, and data.