Overview
MailCheap exists because of beehiiv. Marc Lou paid beehiiv for two years, decided he was paying for features he never used, and built a replacement with a few prompts. He announced it as "Bye bye beehiiv", then open-sourced it in October 2026. MailCheap's homepage still leads with "83% cheaper than beehiiv".
That origin explains the comparison. MailCheap copies the parts of beehiiv a writer touches every week: the editor, scheduling, a public page per issue, signup forms and stats. It leaves out the parts that make beehiiv a business platform: ads, Boosts, paid tiers, referrals, automations and A/B tests.
The pricing gap at real list sizes
beehiiv bills by subscriber tier. MailCheap bills by emails sent, with an active-subscriber cap per plan, and readers marked dormant by list cleanup do not count. For a weekly newsletter (about 4.3 emails per reader per month):
| Subscribers | MailCheap | beehiiv Lite (yearly) |
|---|---|---|
| 2,500 | $19 (Starter) | $0 (Free plan) |
| 5,000 | $39 (Growth) | $95 |
| 10,000 | $39 (Growth) | $119 |
| 25,000 | $79 (Pro) | $169 |
| 50,000 | $149 (Scale) | $249 |
At 5,000 subscribers a weekly issue is about 21,500 emails a month, just over the 20,000 on Starter, so a fortnightly schedule fits the $19 plan and a weekly one needs Growth. Below 2,500 subscribers beehiiv's free plan wins outright.
What beehiiv still does that MailCheap does not
If you use beehiiv to earn, check each of these before moving:
- Ad Network and Boosts. beehiiv places ads and paid recommendations in your issues. MailCheap has no ad or sponsorship tooling.
- Paid subscriptions. beehiiv Lite charges no platform fee on paid tiers. MailCheap cannot gate content or take payments.
- Referral program. beehiiv rewards readers for referrals. MailCheap has no referral tracking.
- Automations and A/B tests. beehiiv Lite includes both. MailCheap sends one welcome email and campaigns.
If none of those appear in your beehiiv revenue or workflow, you are mostly paying beehiiv for a sender, and MailCheap is a cheaper one.
Deliverability defaults
MailCheap is unusually strict. New accounts start with sends of up to 200 emails, and larger sends spread over hours (up to three days) until you build history. The first email to new contacts goes to a small batch, and the rest follow three hours later only if bounces and complaints look healthy. A campaign pauses above 2% hard bounces or 0.08% complaints, and the account is blocked for review above 5% or 0.3%.
That protects your domain, but it changes habits. A big imported list will not go out in one burst, and list cleanup will stop sending to readers who ignore several issues. On beehiiv you manage engagement yourself with segments and re-engagement tools.
AI agents and the API
Both tools ship an official MCP server, but they allow different things. MailCheap's MCP mirrors its full API: create, schedule, send, pause, import contacts, add domains and read reports, with send tools marked irreversible so agents check with you first. beehiiv's MCP can draft posts, manage templates, segments and forms, and read performance, but it cannot publish or schedule, and publishing through beehiiv's REST API needs the Max or Enterprise plan.
Switching from beehiiv to MailCheap
Export subscribers from beehiiv as CSV and import them into MailCheap, which keeps each reader's status and signup date. Expect a smaller count afterwards: MailCheap drops invalid, disposable, role and previously bounced addresses on import. Recreate your welcome email, point your custom domain records (DKIM, return path and DMARC) at MailCheap, and plan for warm-up, since a 10,000-reader list will be spread out over the first sends.
Decision checklist
- Choose MailCheap if the newsletter is free, the list is large relative to its revenue, and you want an agent-friendly sender.
- Choose beehiiv if ads, sponsors, referrals or paid tiers bring in more than the price difference.
- Choose Sequenzy if you want per-email pricing with automations, segments and product email. See also MailCheap alternatives and beehiiv alternatives.
