Migrating from Beehiiv to…
Every Beehiiv migration starts with the same export. What happens after that depends on where you go. This guide covers the export once, then the import for seven destinations.
Quick answer
To migrate from Beehiiv, open Settings → Export Data, click Export All Subscribers for the full file with custom fields, and Export All Posts if you want your archive. Beehiiv emails you a download link that expires after 24 hours. Import the subscriber CSV into your new platform, keep only active subscribers, and run both platforms side by side for a week. Paid subscribers need their own Stripe migration, because the Stripe account Beehiiv connects cannot be connected to another platform.
Step 1: Export everything from Beehiiv
This part is the same wherever you go. You need the Admin role on the Beehiiv workspace.
- Click Settings at the bottom of the left panel. If you run several publications, pick the one you are moving.
- Click Export Data.
- Under subscribers, click Export All Subscribers. This is the full export. It has email, status, tier, custom fields and statistics. The basic export leaves out custom fields, so skip it.
- Under posts, click Export All Posts. You get one CSV with published, archived and draft posts.
- Wait for the email from Beehiiv and download both files the same day. The links expire after 24 hours.
Step 2: Clean the subscriber file
Ten minutes in a spreadsheet saves a bad first send.
- Keep only active subscribers. Sort by the status column and delete every row that is not active. People who unsubscribed on Beehiiv must not get mail from your new platform.
- Keep the tier column. It tells free readers from paid ones. Most platforms let you import it as a tag, which you need later for paid subscribers.
- Delete the statistics columns. Open and click counts from Beehiiv mean nothing on the new platform.
- Save as comma-separated UTF-8. Excel in German, French and some other languages saves “CSV” with semicolons. Most importers reject that. Google Sheets always uses commas.
Before you pick: should you self-host?
Most people leave Beehiiv because of the bill. Beehiiv charges by subscriber, so the price goes up every time your list grows. Self-hosted software charges once. You pay for a server and for the emails you send, and that is all.
| Subscribers | Beehiiv Scale, per year | Broadcast, year one | Broadcast, every year after |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | about $1,150 | about $440 | about $190 |
| 100,000 | about $3,480 | about $1,020 | about $770 |
Beehiiv: Scale plan with annual billing, about $96 a month at 10,000 and $290 a month at 100,000 (full Beehiiv pricing). Broadcast: $250 license once, a 2 GB server at $12 a month for 10,000 or a 4 GB server at $24 a month for 100,000, and Amazon SES at $0.10 per 1,000 emails for four issues a month.
Self-hosting fits if
- Your list is past a few thousand and still growing.
- Your income comes from your own products, sponsors you sell yourself, or your business, not from Beehiiv’s ad network.
- You want the list on a server you control, where no platform can suspend it.
Stay hosted if
- Paid subscriptions are your main income. Pick Ghost, Kit or Buttondown.
- Boosts and the ad network pay you more than Beehiiv costs you.
What running your own server takes
Less than most people expect. You install once, with one command. When a new version is out, the dashboard tells you. You click Upgrade now, and it is done in 5 to 10 minutes. On the standard install, backups run automatically. You do not need to touch the server between upgrades.
We send our own email with Broadcast, on the same software you buy.
Step 3: Pick where you are going
We make Broadcast, so it is first. The others are good tools, and the right one depends on what you leave Beehiiv for.
| Platform | How you pay | Beehiiv import | Paid subs | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broadcast Ours |
$250 once, self-hosted | CSV with column mapping | No | Your list keeps growing and you do not sell paid subscriptions |
| Kit | Monthly, by list size | Direct, with your Beehiiv API key | Yes | You sell digital products to your readers |
| Ghost | Monthly hosted, or self-hosted | Built-in migrator, posts and members | Yes, through your own Stripe | The website and archive matter as much as the email |
| Buttondown | Monthly, by list size | CSV, Beehiiv format detected | Yes | You write in Markdown and want a small, simple tool |
| Substack | Free, 10% of paid revenue | Import tool, official guide | Yes | You want Substack’s reader network |
| MailerLite | Monthly, by list size | CSV | Yes | You want automations and landing pages in one hosted tool |
| listmonk | Free, open source, self-hosted | CSV in its own format | No | You are a developer and want zero license cost |
Import methods come from each platform’s own documentation, linked in its section below. Check their pricing pages for current prices.
Migrating from Beehiiv to Broadcast
Broadcast is email marketing software you install on your own server. You pay $250 once, connect a sending provider like Amazon SES, and your subscriber count never changes the price. At SES rates, 1,000 emails cost about $0.10, and the server is $12 to $24 a month.
-
1
Install Broadcast and connect a provider
Buy a license and install it on an Ubuntu server. The installation guide has a one-command installer and takes about 30 minutes. Then connect your provider. SES vs Postmark vs Mailgun helps you pick one.
-
2
Authenticate your sending domain
Beehiiv signed your mail for you. Now you publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your own domain. Do this before the import, so your first send is already authenticated. The deliverability guide has the records.
-
3
Import the cleaned CSV
Go to Subscribers → Import subscribers and upload the file. Map the email column to Email, the tier column to Tags, and each custom field to a Custom field. Map the subscribe date to Subscribed at and pick its date format, so your join dates survive. Managing subscribers shows each screen.
Do not map Beehiiv’s status column to Active. Broadcast reads onlytrueas active. Beehiiv writesactive, so every row would import as inactive. You already deleted the inactive rows in step 2, so leave status on Ignore. -
4
Rebuild your template
Paste your newsletter HTML into an HTML template, or rebuild it in the drag-and-drop builder. One template covers most newsletters.
-
5
Recreate your welcome sequence and signup form
Copy your Beehiiv welcome emails into an email sequence. Replace the Beehiiv signup embed on your site with a Broadcast opt-in form. New signups now land in Broadcast.
-
6
Warm up, then send
A new domain has no reputation yet. Send to your most engaged readers first and grow the volume over two to three weeks. How to warm up an email domain has a schedule. Run a spam check on the first issue.
What Broadcast does not replace
Broadcast does not take payments and does not host a public web archive. If you sell paid subscriptions, Kit, Ghost or Buttondown is the better fit for that part. If you want an archive, publish your exported posts on your own site. Most Broadcast users already have one.
Migrating from Beehiiv to other platforms
Each platform documents its own import. These are the short versions, with a link to the source.
Beehiiv to Kit
Kit imports from Beehiiv directly. Go to Subscribers → Add Subscribers → Other provider → Beehiiv, paste your Beehiiv API key and click Start import. Tags and custom fields come with each subscriber, and Kit adds a tag named after your publication. You rebuild segments and automations by hand. You can also upload the CSV from step 1 instead. Source: Kit help center.
Beehiiv to Ghost
Ghost has a built-in Beehiiv migrator under Settings → Advanced → Import/Export. Pick your Beehiiv site, choose posts, subscribers or both, check the counts and click Import content and subscribers. It is the only option here that moves your posts as a working archive. Paid members need the Stripe step below. Source: Ghost migration docs.
Beehiiv to Substack
Substack publishes its own guide for this move. Import the subscriber CSV in your Substack settings, and handle paid subscribers through Stripe as below. Substack is free to use and takes 10% of paid subscription revenue. Source: Substack support.
Beehiiv to MailerLite
Use MailerLite’s subscriber import and upload the cleaned CSV into a group. Map the tier column to a field or a group, so free and paid readers stay apart. Rebuild your welcome flow in MailerLite’s automation editor. See our MailerLite comparison before you commit.
Beehiiv to listmonk
listmonk is free, open-source software you host yourself. Its importer expects its own CSV layout: an email column, a name column, and an attributes column with JSON. So you reshape the Beehiiv file first and move custom fields into the JSON column. It suits developers who are comfortable with that. Broadcast vs listmonk covers the difference.
Step 5: Move paid subscribers
This is the hard part of any Beehiiv migration, and it is the same problem on every platform.
Beehiiv connects your Stripe account in a way that gives Beehiiv control of it. Ghost’s documentation says that Stripe account cannot be connected to another platform. So you open a new Stripe account for the new platform and move customers into it.
Stripe can copy customers and their saved cards from one account to another on request. You then recreate each subscription in the new account, with the first charge on the old renewal date, and cancel the old subscription at the end of its period. Nobody pays twice and nobody re-enters a card. The open-source ghost-stripe-migration-toolkit automates this for Ghost.
Also check your Stripe statement descriptor. It can still say “beehiiv”, and readers dispute charges they do not recognize.
What stays on Beehiiv
Some things are part of Beehiiv’s network, not your publication. They do not move to any platform.
- The ad network and Boosts. If that income matters, count it before you leave.
- The referral program. Referral counts and rewards stay behind. Tell your top referrers before you switch.
- Open and click history. Engagement starts from zero on the new platform.
Run both for a week
Keep Beehiiv open until your first two issues land well on the new platform. Point new signups at the new platform first. Then cancel Beehiiv, but download your exports again before you do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Leave Beehiiv for software you own
$250 once. Your server, your list, and a price that does not move when the list grows.
