Podia vs. Beehiiv: Which one is right for me?
Great question! We think Podia is a wonderful home for your business, but here's an honest comparison so you can decide for yourself.
Both Podia and Beehiiv let you build an email list, send newsletters, and create a website to publish your work. Both also give you a way to sell digital downloads and grow your audience over time.
The main difference is what kind of business you can build on each.
- Beehiiv is built primarily for newsletters, with tools for growing your publication and monetizing through advertising and paid subscriptions.
- Podia is an all-in-one platform for building a community, selling your own products, running your email marketing, and managing the other aspects of your online business.
Let's look at the details so you can find the right fit.
Podia vs. Beehiiv pricing and plans
First, let's talk numbers.
Podia pricing
Podia has three plans: Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker.
All Podia plans come with your website, digital products, community, email marketing, and unlimited customers and sales. Podia also has a 30-day free trial that lets you test everything before buying.
- Mover: $49/month and 5% transaction fee ($42/month when paid annually): Includes your community, website builder, blog, landing pages, digital products, and courses, with 50 products, storage for 500 videos, 100 email subscribers, and 25 community spaces.
- Shaker: $99/month and 0% transaction fee ($84/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Mover, plus affiliate marketing, upsells, 1 assistant seat, and integrations with PayPal, Zoom, and Zapier, with 150 products, 1,000 videos, 500 email subscribers, and 100 community spaces.
- Earthquaker: $179/month and 0% transaction fee ($150/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Shaker, with unlimited products, unlimited assistant seats, unlimited video storage, and unlimited community spaces. This plan includes 1,000 email subscribers.
All Podia plans include email marketing features like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns. Your plan comes with a certain number of subscribers out of the box, and you can upgrade your subscriber count at any time as your list grows.
- Mover includes up to 100 subscribers
- Shaker includes up to 500 subscribers
- Earthquaker includes up to 1,000 subscribers
All plans come with unlimited email sends.
Podia also includes a free migration service on paid plans. The team will move your products and email list over from another platform so you can get set up faster without the extra work.
Beehiiv pricing
Beehiiv has three plans plus a custom Enterprise tier. Beehiiv’s paid plan prices are based on subscriber limits, so the prices below are what you’ll pay if you have up to 1,000 subscribers. If you need to move to a higher subscriber tier as your audience grows, your monthly cost will increase.
- Launch: $0/month. Includes newsletters, a website, and podcasts, unlimited email sends, the recommendation network, and the AI website builder. Supports up to 2,500 subscribers.
- Scale: $49/month ($43/month when paid annually) for 1,000 subscribers. Includes everything on Launch, plus monetization features, the ad network, the boosts network, digital products, email automations, 3 team seats, and human support.
- Max: $109/month ($96/month when paid annually) for 1,000 subscribers. Includes everything on Scale, plus the option to remove Beehiiv branding, a sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, appointments, RSS to send, up to 10 publications, unlimited team seats, and priority support.
One thing to note: Beehiiv's free Launch plan works if you mainly want to publish a newsletter since it supports up to 2,500 subscribers at no cost. But the catch is that there aren’t any monetization features on the Launch plan.
To unlock digital products, automations, and monetization tools, you'll need the Scale plan or higher, or you’ll need to connect and pay for additional tools.
Newsletters and email marketing
Beehiiv is primarily a newsletter and email platform, with monetization tools built in. You can design newsletters, send unlimited emails, segment your audience, and run automations on the Scale plan and above.
Beehiiv also has features for growing your publication, like a recommendation network, ad network, boosts, and referral program.
Podia includes email marketing tools on every plan. You’ll get automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns, as well as unlimited email sends.
Because your email is already connected to your website, products, and community, it's easy to add opt-in forms, set up lead magnets, and follow up with customers based on what they've bought or how active they've been. You can also see how much income each email and campaign earned, so you know what's working.
Both platforms handle the fundamentals of email well. The difference is that Beehiiv is designed around growing and monetizing a publication, while Podia connects email marketing with products, courses, community, and sales so you can build connections with your audience.
Online courses and products
With Podia, you can sell standalone courses, digital downloads, coaching, events, and bundles, with or without community access. Products can be free, or you can charge a one-time payment, set up payment plans, or create subscriptions.
Podia has course features like quizzes and completion certificates, and your products can have upsells, coupons, access limits, and waitlists. To give your students a more engaging experience, you can pair any course with a private community space.
Beehiiv supports digital products on the Scale plan and above. You can charge for things like links, file downloads, and 1:1 coaching sessions, but Beehiiv doesn't include an online course builder, so you can't create course modules, lessons, and quizzes natively the way you can with Podia.
Beehiiv also doesn’t have an events feature or community feature, so you'd need to connect other tools to add those parts of your business.
Community
Both Podia and Beehiiv help you build connections with the people you serve, but Podia has an online community feature you can use to get to know your members.
Podia includes your community on every plan, where your members can post, comment, search, chat, and connect with one another. You can create separate spaces for different memberships, products, or tiers, which works well for things like VIP areas, cohort programs, or course-specific discussions.
Your community works seamlessly with your newsletter too, so you can share updates and point people to products or paid plans.
Beehiiv doesn't have a community feature, so there’s not a dedicated space where subscribers can create discussions, interact with each other, and build relationships beyond the newsletter.
Monetization
Podia and Beehiiv take different approaches to helping you earn.
Beehiiv offers monetization tools designed around newsletters, including ads, paid subscriptions, recommendations, and lightweight digital products. If you hope to grow through advertising, its native ad network helps you connect your content with brands, and you can also explore boosts, paid recommendations, and paid subscriptions.
Podia is built to help you sell your own products. You can offer courses, downloads, coaching, events, and memberships, with upsells to increase each sale and built-in affiliate marketing so others can promote your work for a commission. Podia removes transaction fees on the Shaker and Earthquaker plans, so you keep more of what you earn as you grow.
Who is Beehiiv best for?
Beehiiv can be a great fit if your business is built around a newsletter. It works well for people who:
- Mainly want to grow and publish a newsletter
- Like the idea of earning through paid newsletter subscriptions, advertising, and sponsorships
- Want growth tools like recommendations, boosts, and a referral program
- Don’t mind paying for other platforms if they later want courses or a community
Who is Podia best for?
Podia is a great fit if you want to build your newsletter, products, and community in one place, without relying on a collection of separate tools. It works well for creators who:
- Want their website, email, products, and community fully connected in one platform
- Plan to sell digital products, online courses, coaching, and events alongside their newsletter
- Want a community space where members can connect and build lasting relationships
- Look for selling tools like upsells, bundles, affiliate marketing, and coupons
If creating a community and selling digital products is a core part of your business, Podia is a great fit that keeps everything in one easy-to-use platform. You can organize courses, downloads, coaching, events, and bundles in a way that fits your goals, all while keeping your community and subscribers at the center of everything you do.
We’ll help you move to Podia for free
If you're looking for an all-in-one platform that makes it simple to run your whole online business, has world-class customer service, and is affordable whether you're just starting out or growing fast, we built Podia just for you.
To make the decision even easier, we offer free migrations on all paid plans, so you don't have to move your existing products and email list over by yourself. Just sign up for a Mover, Shaker, or Earthquaker plan, let the team know you're interested in a free migration, and we'll get the process started.