beehiiv and Kit are the two cheapest ways to run a newsletter with AI help, and both have a free tier that is real. Ghost is the pick when you want the newsletter and the website in one place and do not mind paying $18 a month.
Prices below come from the vendors' own pricing pages on 1 November 2026.
Which newsletter tool should a small team pick?
| Tool | Price | Good at | Where it hurts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | Free up to 10,000 subscribers; paid from $33/mo yearly | A free tier that stays usable for years | Plainer landing pages |
| beehiiv | Free plan with unlimited sends; Lite $49/mo monthly, $39/mo yearly | Growth: referrals, recommendations, ad network | Paid plans cost more than Kit |
| Ghost (hosted) | $18/mo billed yearly (Starter); $29/mo Publisher | Newsletter plus a real website on one domain | No built-in growth tools |
| Ghost (self-hosted) | Software free; you pay hosting | Lowest long-run cost if you can run a server | You own updates, backups, deliverability |
What "AI" actually does in a newsletter tool
Almost every platform advertises AI. In practice it writes subject line variants, drafts an email from your notes, and summarises what performed last month. None of that is worth paying double for.
What is worth paying for is the list: deliverability, a clean editor, and a form that converts. Choose on those, then use a $20 chat subscription for the writing if the platform's AI is weak.
Kit: free up to 10,000 subscribers
Kit's free plan covers 10,000 subscribers, which is more than most newsletters will ever need. You can run for two years and pay nothing. Paid plans start at $33 a month billed yearly ($390); you pay for automations, sequences and a referral program, not for basic sending.
beehiiv: free sending, paid growth
beehiiv's free plan includes unlimited sends, templates, landing pages and an API. The paid Lite plan is $49 a month, or $39 billed yearly, and adds paid subscriptions, ad monetisation and automations. It is the better pick if you intend to grow with referrals, and the worse pick if you just want to send a weekly email cheaply.
Ghost: newsletter and website in one
Ghost Starter is $18 a month billed yearly and gives you a newsletter plus a real website on your own domain. Publisher is $29, Business $199. If you already pay for a site and a newsletter separately, Ghost replaces both. Self-hosting the same software is free and you pay only for a server, but updates, backups and deliverability become yours.
The setup that costs nothing for a year
Start on Kit's free plan, write in whatever AI tool you already pay for, and move only when you hit a paid feature you need. The mistake is paying $39 to $49 a month before the list has 100 engaged readers. The platform is not what makes a newsletter grow; the writing and the consistency do.
What we did not test
We did not run a live campaign on all four platforms and are not claiming inbox placement numbers. Every price comes from the vendor's pricing page on 1 November 2026.
Originally published at voxahq.in.
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