Beehiiv vs Substack, Which is better for Local Newsletter?

 If you own a local newsletter or you’re planning to start one, these insights will help you make a decision on which email service provider to go for.

I studied 1007 local newsletters.

I found a network of 20 Local Newsletters with fake subscriber count (check my previous post for details), so I removed them from my dataset.

Of the remaining 987 local newsletters, 474 of them were either on Beehiiv or Substack, making the duo the most preferred ESPs for local Newsletters.

This means that almost half (48.02%) of Local Newsletters use either Beehiiv or Substack.

Out of the 474 newsletters, 86 newsletters have at least 1000 subscribers, with the highest being https://parisbymouth.substack.com/ (100,000 subscribers).

For this report, I’ll refer to newsletters with at least 1000 subscribers as ‘successful newsletters’.

If you like to see the newsletters I used for this analysis, please check my Local Newsletters Directory at – https://localizednewsletters.com/ 

Let’s get into the details. 

 Platform Distribution

 – Beehiiv: 367 newsletters (77.4% of total)
– Substack: 107 newsletters (22.6% of total)

– Total: 474

This means there are more Local Newsletters using Beehiiv than Substack.

Subscriber Metrics

 Total Subscribers

   – Beehiiv: 293,190 subscribers
  – Substack: 436,000 subscribers

 Substack has 48.71% more subscribers than Beehiiv, even though there are more Beehiiv local newsletters.
 

 Average Subscribers per Newsletter

   – Beehiiv: ~799 subscribers
  – Substack: ~4,075 subscribers (5x higher than Beehiiv)

Success Rate (1000+ subscribers)

 – Beehiiv: Only 7.4% of newsletters have 1,000+ subscribers
– Substack: 55.1% of newsletters have 1,000+ subscribers

Geographic Distribution

 Top Countries by Total Subscribers

   1. United States: 493,947 subscribers
  2. France: 100,000 subscribers (One Newsletter -https://parisbymouth.substack.com/)
  3. Canada: 94,243 subscribers
  4. Germany: 17,000 subscribers
  5. United Kingdom: 15,000 subscribers

Domain Patterns in Successful Newsletters

Domain Extensions

 – Substack.com domains: 43 successful newsletters
– Custom domains: 32 successful newsletters
– Beehiiv.com domains: 11 successful newsletters

Using custom domains doesn’t make a significant difference.

Domain Morphology

– Most successful domains are concise but descriptive (average 15 characters)

– Average of 4.7 syllables per domain name (most common: 3-5 syllables)

My Conclusions

 1. While Beehiiv has more newsletters overall (3.4x more than Substack), Substack has significantly more total subscribers.

2. Substack newsletters are much more likely to be successful – over half of Substack newsletters have 1,000+ subscribers compared to only 7.4% of Beehiiv newsletters.

3. Substack newsletters have a much higher average subscriber count (5x higher than Beehiiv).

4. The United States dominates in terms of total subscribers, followed by France and Canada.

5. Among successful newsletters (1,000+ subscribers), more use Substack.com domains than custom domains or Beehiiv.com domains (using custom domains doesn’t make a significant difference).

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More graphs and charts at - https://localizednewsletters.com/beehiiv-vs-substack-for-local-newsletters/