Beehiiv adds webinars and customizable paywalls, expanding beyond newsletters

Beehiiv is pushing past the newsletter box and into the business infrastructure of the creator economy. The company has added webinars and customizable paywalls to a platform that already sells websites, digital products, podcasts and other tools, a move meant to keep independent publishers from stitching together separate services to reach paying readers.

The expansion builds on a larger shift Beehiiv laid out in November 2025, when it introduced website building, digital product sales, podcast hosting and other creator tools. CEO Tyler Denk has argued that creators do not want to use five or six separate platforms, and the latest launch extends that logic into live programming and subscription controls. Beehiiv now says it combines newsletter publishing, a no-code website builder and an ad network in one place.

The paywall tools are especially aimed at sharpening the revenue side of the platform. Beehiiv’s paid-subscription system already supports flexible tiers, monthly or annual pricing, pay-what-you-want models, gift subscriptions, free trials and discounts. Its help documentation says publishers can create custom paywall breaks, customize the default paywall, restrict the web version of a newsletter to paying readers and add paywalls to individual posts. That matters for smaller publishers that want to experiment with membership without rebuilding their audience stack from scratch.

The webinar push points to a broader attempt to become a home for audience development, not just distribution. Beehiiv’s virtual-events page invites users to join its virtual events and webinars to learn from top newsletter creators, giving the new feature a clear place inside the company’s creator education pitch. The company’s March 2026 changelog showed how far that expansion had already gone, highlighting digital products, an AI website builder, native podcast functionality, link-in-bio tools, dynamic content and more advanced automations and analytics.

The economics help explain the strategy. Recent reporting put Beehiiv at roughly a $32 million annual run rate and about 55,000 active users in late 2025, while the company says it has sent more than 35 billion emails since its 2021 founding. Beehiiv also says it takes zero revenue share from subscription earnings, aside from Stripe processing fees, a selling point that may resonate with creators trying to keep more of every dollar. For publishers weighing Substack, Patreon or separate video tools, Beehiiv is trying to make the case that the next phase is not a better newsletter app, but a full monetization layer built around email and direct reader relationships.