Methodology

The calculator is plain arithmetic on published prices. This page explains every step so you can check it yourself.

The formula

For each platform, per month:

total cost = plan price + paid add-on + (gross paid revenue × platform fee %) + payment processing

• Paying subscribers = total subscribers × paid %, rounded to the nearest whole person.
• Gross paid revenue = paying subscribers × monthly price.
• Plan price: the cheapest self-serve plan whose subscriber limit covers your total list (free + paid) and, if anyone pays, which supports paid subscriptions. If you pick “yearly”, we use the yearly price divided by 12.
• Paid add-on: Buttondown charges +$9/month for paid subscriptions; no other platform in our set has a separate add-on for this.
• Platform fee: Substack 10%; Kit 0.6% (Kit lists 3.5% + 30¢ including card processing); beehiiv, Ghost (Pro), Buttondown and MailerLite 0%.
• Payment processing = paying subscribers × (price × 2.9% + $0.30): Stripe's standard rate for US cards, charged once per subscriber per month.
• You keep = gross paid revenue − total cost. Yearly figures are monthly × 12.

The calculation code is the same at build time and in your browser, and it is covered by automated tests with hand-checked scenarios.

Stripe Billing (optional)

Stripe also lists a 0.7% “Billing” fee on recurring volume (stripe.com/pricing). Substack's help center says it applies to Substack subscriptions. Whether it applies on other platforms depends on how each one bills through your Stripe account, and we have not confirmed that for each platform. So it is an off-by-default toggle applied equally to all platforms, rather than a guess.

What we do not include

• Sales tax / VAT, and your own income tax.
• International cards (+1.5%) and currency conversion (+1%) on Stripe.
• Annual reader subscriptions (fewer, larger charges mean lower per-charge fees), discounts, refunds, disputes and failed payments.
• Apple/Google in-app purchase fees (e.g. Substack's iOS app).
• Optional extras: custom domains (e.g. Substack's one-time $50), extra seats, automations, white-labelling, Kit's 23.5% fee on Paid Recommendations earnings, ad-network revenue shares.
• Sending limits and overage fees (Buttondown's prices assume at most one email a day to your whole list).
• Self-hosted options (e.g. self-hosted Ghost), limited-time promotions and grandfathered legacy prices.
• Features, deliverability, discovery/growth tools and support quality. Cost is one input, not a verdict. A free platform with built-in discovery (such as Substack's network) may be worth its fee to you.

How prices are verified

• Every price lives in one data file with its source URL and the date it was checked.
• Verified means we read that exact figure on the platform's own official page (pricing page, help center or official blog) on the date shown.
• Unverified means the official page shows tier prices only inside an interactive slider we could not read, so the figure comes from a dated third-party write-up, which is linked in the row's details. We replace these as soon as we confirm them on the official page.
• When our data does not have a price for your exact list size, we use the next tier up and say so, since an intermediate tier could be cheaper. When no self-serve plan covers your size, we say “not available” instead of guessing.
• We never invent or estimate a price.

How often we update

We re-check every platform's pricing at least once a month (first week of the month), and immediately when a platform announces a change. Every change, and every monthly check, is recorded in the price-change log. Last full check: 2026-10-19.

Neutrality

• Results are sorted only by total cost. Whether a platform has an affiliate program, or pays us, never changes the numbers, the order or which platforms appear.
• Platforms that pay no commission (currently Substack, Ghost, Buttondown and MailerLite as far as this site is concerned) are covered with the same detail, the same formula and the same update schedule as those that might.
• We say plainly when a non-paying platform is the cheaper or better-fitting option.
• "Visit" links to platforms pass through /go/ redirects and are marked rel="sponsored nofollow". Links to official pricing pages and cited sources are plain links with no referral code. See the affiliate disclosure.

Corrections

If a number is wrong, please tell us (contact on the About page). Confirmed corrections are fixed and logged with the date.