The Best Email Newsletter Platforms of 2025: Comparison Guide

A breakdown of features, pricing, and ideal use cases.

Written by

EJ

Published on

27 Jul 2025

Table of contents

Choosing the right platform is critical to ensuring your email newsletter stays healthy and profitable.

A great email newsletter platform does more than just send emails – it helps you build a brand, engage your audience, track performance, and earn revenue effectively. In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know to make the right choice. We’ll compare popular platforms (beehiiv, Substack, Sailthru, Mailchimp, and Active Campaign), analyze their strengths, pricing, and ideal use cases, and help you choose the one best suited to your newsletter goals.

Choosing an Email Newsletter Platform in 2025

In 2025, the creator economy is growing and evolving. Now more than ever, brands, businesses, and creators are turning to email to get their content in front of their target audience.

The options for email newsletter platforms seem never-ending. Designed for mass communication, these platforms come equipped with features that help:

• Design professional-looking emails
• Automate email sequences and drip campaigns
• Manage and segment subscriber lists
• Track performance through analytics
• Ensure high deliverability rates
• Offer monetization through paid subscriptions or ads

Modern platforms go even further, often including landing pages, referral programs, community discovery tools, and e-commerce functionality. Whether you're a solo writer, content creator, or a media brand, the right platform simplifies your workflow and amplifies your reach.

Essential Features To Consider

1. Deliverability

Even the best-written newsletter won’t matter if it doesn’t reach the inbox. Deliverability measures how reliably your emails avoid spam folders and land in your subscribers’ primary inboxes. Good platforms maintain optimized sending infrastructure, enforce healthy list practices, and provide tools like domain authentication (DMARC, SPF, and DKIM setup).

• beehiiv: Known for strong deliverability thanks to backend optimizations and sender reputation tools.
• Substack: Handles deliverability well, but offers less granular control.
• Mailchimp: Industry veteran with high deliverability, but more complex deliverability settings.
• ActiveCampaign: Strong deliverability, with native options for automating your list hygiene.

2. Email Design & Editor Experience

A good editor allows you to craft beautiful, readable emails without needing to know HTML.

• beehiiv: Offers both a drag-and-drop editor and Markdown editor. Sleek, minimal, and easy to use.
• Substack: Focuses on simplicity. Clean editor, but limited customization.
• ActiveCampaign: Drag-and-drop editor, but can have a steep learning curve.
• Mailchimp: Advanced design tools with drag-and-drop blocks, image handling, and custom code.
• Sailthru: Drag-and-drop options, but more advanced customization may require HTML knowledge.

3. Segmentation & Personalization

Segmentation lets you send the right message to the right audience. Personalization adds dynamic elements like names or interests.

• beehiiv: Powerful segmentation built into every plan.
• Substack: More limited segmentation features.
• ActiveCampaign: Provides automation options for segmentation.
• Mailchimp: Offers segmentation by behavior, demographics, and engagement.
• Sailthru: Uses AI to track customer behavior to improve segments.

4. Analytics & Reporting

Tracking email performance helps refine your strategy. Look for metrics like open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, and growth over time.

• beehiiv: Real-time analytics with growth source tracking, segment-level reporting, and revenue performance.
• Substack: Basic stats (opens, clicks, revenue) only.
• Sailthru: Provides event data at the user level that you can import into any data analysis tool of your choice.
• Mailchimp: Offers campaign reports, heatmaps, and A/B test results.
• ActiveCampaign: Standard reporting, but may not have the best data visualization.

5. Monetization Options

Think about how you’ll earn from your newsletter. Paid subscriptions? Sponsorships? Ad networks?

• beehiiv: Multiple built-in monetization tools: paid subscriptions, referral program, Boosts marketplace, and an integrated Ad Network. Also offers direct sponsorships advertising storefronts.
• Substack: Built for paid subscriptions. Charges 10% fee.
• Mailchimp/ActiveCampaign: No built-in paid subscription or ad options; needs third-party tools.
• Sailthru: Monetization through their AdFlight tool.

6. List growth tools

Continued, sustainable growth is arguably equally important to your newsletter’s profitability as your monetization options. Look for built-in growth tools to simplify your workflows and reduce the need for additional subscriber acquisition tools.

• beehiiv: Strong growth tools including Boosts marketplace, recommendations, subscribe forms, and referral programs.
• Substack: Offers Substack notes for engaging within the Substack community.
• ActiveCampaign: Focused on automations, with landing pages and forms to start your customer’s automation journey.

Pricing Models & Scalability

Subscriber-Based Pricing

Most platforms charge based on the number of subscribers. This scales with your audience size.

While almost every platform offers options for newsletters starting out, established newsletters with a high subscriber count will have more specific needs. If you are at this level, you likely need more technologically advanced features than a newsletter in their beginning stages.

Pricing is often customized for your newsletter, and requires a conversation with the platform’s sales team for specific pricing quotes.

• beehiiv: Enterprise level offers concierge onboarding, a dedicated account manager, and options like dedicated IP addresses and Send API, a feature exclusive to Enterprise plans.
• ActiveCampaign: Enterprise plans have access to premium segmentation, premium reporting and analytics, and a dedicated account team.
• Sailthru: Custom plans based on your needs, with a dedicated customer success manager and a variety of add-on services available in-house to meet your creative, strategy, or analytic requirements.

Revenue Share Models

You pay a percentage of the income generated.

• Substack: Takes 10% of your paid subscriber revenue.
• beehiiv: Take 0% of your subscription revenue.

Scalability

Make sure the platform won’t limit you later.

• beehiiv: Handles scale effortlessly. Built for high-growth newsletters (e.g. Milk Road).
• Mailchimp: Scales well with more marketing features.

Platform Spotlights

beehiiv: All-in-one growth engine. Built by Morning Brew alumni, beehiiv includes a customizable website, clean editor, advanced analytics, and both ad and subscription monetization options. Ideal for growth-stage newsletters and content businesses.

Substack: Simplicity-first. No upfront cost, instant launch, and built-in payment support. Limited analytics, customization, and no ad monetization. Good for solo writers.

Active Campaign: Complex and advanced automations. Best for agencies and e-commerce focused businesses.

Mailchimp: Enterprise-grade marketing suite. Includes CRM, landing pages, forms, and advanced automation. Better for brands than solo writers.

Sailthru: Focus on personalization and customer relationship. Best for high-volume senders needing support for traditional marketing and transactional emails.

Choosing the Right Platform for You

Ask yourself:

• Do you want to earn with ads, subscriptions, or both?
• Are you a creator, a business, or a publisher?
• Do you need advanced automations and integrations?
• What’s your budget, and how fast will you grow?

Choose:

• Substack if you want zero setup and a focus on paid content.
• beehiiv if you’re aiming to grow your audience, create top-notch content, and diversify your revenue.
• Sailthru if engagement is your highest priority.
• Mailchimp if you need a full-suite marketing CRM.
• Active Campaign if automations are the backbone of your strategy.

Before committing, test out the editor and features, and run a small test campaign. This is the best way to find out which platform feels right. Why not start with a 30-day free trial of beehiiv?

With the right email newsletter platform, your content becomes a real business. Whether you’re writing for 100 people or 100,000, pick the tool that will scale with your vision.