Choosing the Right Platform for Blogging or Newsletter: 5 Popular Platforms Compared

Choosing the right platform for blogging or newsletters can feel overwhelming—at least, that’s how I felt as a beginner. I’m not an expert in content creation, but I wanted to share my findings to help others like me figure out where to start.

To ease my “overanalysis paranoia,” I dove into insights from over 50 sources, including official websites, Reddit discussions, and personal blogs. This guide breaks down WordPress, Substack, Medium, Beehiiv, and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) so you can choose tools that fit your needs—without overthinking it. Keep in mind, that I don’t have the first-hand experience with most of those tools at the time of writing.

You might wonder why I’ve combined newsletter-focused, writing-first, and subscription-oriented platforms in one comparison. As I explored their features, I noticed many of them are starting to overlap. Comparing them side by side felt like the best way to uncover a “golden medium”—a platform that might offer the best of all worlds.

For a quick, head-to-head comparison of the options discussed in this article, be sure to check out the comprehensive comparison table at the end.

The Contenders: WordPress, Medium, Beehiiv, Kit, and Substack

WordPress

WordPress, the undisputed king of content management systems, offers flexibility and control over your blog’s design and functionality. Its vast library of themes and plugins allows you to create a unique online presence, catering to a diverse range of content formats and styles. WordPress provides the tools to build a scalable platform that can grow with your audience.

Medium

Medium prioritises a clean, distraction-free writing experience, allowing you to focus solely on creating your story. While its blogging functionalities are more streamlined than WordPress, Medium boasts a built-in audience of avid readers, providing immediate exposure to your content. This makes it an attractive option for writers seeking to quickly build a readership.

Beehiiv

While primarily known for its newsletter prowess, Beehiiv also offers blogging functionalities. Its intuitive editor and SEO-friendly features empower you to create blog posts designed to attract organic traffic. Beehiiv’s focus on growth and monetisation makes it a compelling choice for creators seeking to build a business around their content.

Kit

Kit is renowned for its advanced email marketing capabilities. Its primary strength lies in nurturing your email list and driving conversions. Kit might be a better fit if your focus is on building a loyal subscriber base and selling products or services.

Substack

Substack champions simplicity, offering a stripped-down blogging experience that prioritises writing and reader engagement. Its minimalist interface and focus on email newsletters make it ideal for writers who value a direct connection with their audience. However, its limited customisation options might feel restrictive for those seeking greater control over their blog’s design.

Blogging Functionalities

At the heart of content creation lies the ability to craft compelling blog posts. Let’s explore how each platform fares in empowering you to bring your blog to life. I excluded Kit from the comparison as it doesn’t have blogging capabilities.

• Medium: prioritizes simplicity, offering a distraction-free writing environment. You can embed multimedia content such as images and videos, but its formatting options are limited. For categorization, Medium uses tags to connect your posts with relevant content and help readers discover your work.
• Substack: features a simple text editor that supports basic formatting, inserting images, quotes, and multimedia elements. It has the tags feature, which enables to add a label to any post and create a page for a specific tag.
• WordPress: stands out with its flexibility in both formatting and organization. Its block editor enables text formatting, multimedia integration, and interactive elements through plugins. For categorization, WordPress allows you to use categories and tags, making it easy to organize posts and improve searchability.
• Beehiiv: Beehiiv’s editor is user-friendly, offering tools for text formatting, custom HTML, image embedding, and even AI-assisted writing. For organization, Beehiiv supports content tags, enabling you to create categories and assign multiple tags to a single post for better discoverability.

Ease of Setup and Usage

The initial setup and ongoing user experience can significantly impact your content creation workflow. Let’s delve into how easy it is to get started and navigate each platform.

• Medium: is incredibly user-friendly and requires no coding knowledge for setup and usage.
• Substack: is also designed to be user-friendly, allowing writers to focus on content creation without technical expertise.
• WordPress: is generally user-friendly, but utilising its more advanced features and customisations requires some technical expertise.
• Kit: focuses on simplifying email marketing tasks, making it relatively easy to use for those familiar with email marketing concepts.
• Beehiiv: is built for a seamless user experience. While it offers advanced features like custom HTML and API access, its core functionality remains accessible to users without technical expertise.

User Interface and Navigation

A clean, clutter-free interface can boost productivity and foster creativity. How each platform compare in providing a distraction-free writing environment?

• Medium: Medium’s interface is clean, intuitive, and prioritises writing. It offers a distraction-free writing environment.
• Substack: is known for its simple and straightforward interface, making it easy to create and send newsletters.
• WordPress: has a more complex interface than Medium or Substack but provides users with greater control over their website’s design and functionality.
• Kit: Kit’s interface is primarily geared toward email marketing workflows, including automation, segmentation, and campaign management.
• Beehiiv: Beehiiv’s interface focuses on growth and monetisation features, providing easy access to analytics and tools to expand a newsletter’s reach.

Branding and Professionalism

Establishing a strong brand identity is crucial in the competitive online world. Let’s explore how each platform empowers you to use a custom domain to enhance your brand presence.

• Medium: provides users with subdomains (yourname.medium.com), but offers custom domain options for a free for paid users.
• Substack: offers custom domain options for a fee.
• WordPress: allows the use of custom domains to enhance branding and establish a professional online presence.
• Kit: includes custom domain options to align landing pages and email communications with your brand.
• Beehiiv: provides custom domain functionality for users to strengthen their brand identity.

Search Engine Optimization Features

Search engine optimisation is vital for attracting organic traffic and expanding your reach. How do these platforms stack up in terms of SEO capabilities?

• Medium: Medium’s SEO is tied to its platform, making it challenging to rank high in search engine results.
• Substack: offers basic SEO features, but discoverability heavily relies on its internal ecosystem, potentially limiting organic reach.
• WordPress: provides robust built-in SEO features, along with a wide array of plugins to optimise content for search engines.
• Kit: offers basic SEO features to optimise landing pages and forms for search engine visibility. Nevertheless, its SEO capabilities are limited compared to dedicated website builders.
• Beehiiv: is known for its strong SEO capabilities, including custom domains, meta descriptions, and other on-page optimisation tools. Still, these are less comprehensive compared to platforms like WordPress.

Building Newsletters

Newsletters are a powerful tool for fostering a loyal audience and driving engagement. Medium lacks email marketing features, so I excluded it from comparison. Let’s examine the newsletter features offered by other platforms.

• Substack: is specifically designed for email newsletters and provides built-in subscriber management and monetisation features. It offers robust subscriber management features, allowing writers to segment their audience and send targeted emails.
• WordPress: requires plugins for advanced email marketing functionality. Users can integrate with services like Kit or use plugins to manage subscribers and send campaigns.
• Kit: is a powerful email marketing platform, offering advanced features for automation, managing email subscribers, enabling list segmentation, automated workflows, and personalised email campaigns..
• Beehiiv: excels in its newsletter features, providing customisable templates, optimised deliverability to improve inbox placement, and tools to grow a subscriber base. It offers advanced subscriber management capabilities, including segmentation based on engagement and analytics to understand audience behaviour.

Growing You Audience

Building a thriving audience is the dream of every content creator. How do these platforms equip you with the tools to grow your readership?

• Medium: has a large, active user base, which provides writers with immediate exposure to a potential audience.
• Substack: Substack, while smaller than Medium, leverages its network and recommendation features to connect writers with interested readers. It also provides basic social media sharing buttons to promote content on other platforms.
• WordPress: does not have a built-in audience; writers are responsible for building their audience through external marketing efforts and SEO strategies. It offers a vast selection of plugins to integrate with various social media platforms, allowing automated sharing, social logins, and other functionalities
• Kit: relies on creators to bring their existing audience to the platform; it does not have a built-in audience for discovery. You can join the Creator Network to connect and collaborate with popular voices in your niche. By recommending your favorite creators, you’ll notify them directly, opening the door to partnerships.
• Beehiiv: Beehiiv’s recommendation network helps writers expand their reach and gain new subscribers through exposure to other newsletters. It also integrates with major social media platforms, enabling users to share content and promote their newsletters across different channels.

Making It Your Own with Customisation

Personalisation is key to creating a unique online presence. Let’s explore the customisation options offered by each platform, allowing you to tailor your blog to reflect your brand identity.

• Medium: prioritises a consistent user experience across the platform, offering limited customisation options for writers.
• Substack: offers a limited number of pre-designed templates. Users have minimal control over the design and layout of their publications. It doesn’t provide support for API or plugins to extend functionality. You can check layouts here.
• WordPress: offers unparalleled customisation through its vast library of themes and plugins. Users have near-total control over their website’s design and appearance. You can find plugins for almost any functionality, from SEO optimisation to e-commerce integration.
• Kit: focuses on customising landing pages and email templates to align with a brand’s visual identity, offering design flexibility within those areas. It integrates with third-party applications to enhance functionality and connect with other tools used in a creator’s workflow
• Beehiiv: offers more flexibility than Substack by allowing users to use custom HTML and templates to create a unique look for their newsletters. However, it doesn’t come with predefined layouts, meaning you’ll need to build one from scratch. Some Reddit users noted that hiring help on platforms like Upwork saved them considerable time. Additionally, Beehiiv provides API access for developers, enabling custom integrations and extending the platform’s functionality beyond standard features. You can check some newsletters build with Beehiiv here.

Workflow Automation

Automation is crucial for efficiency, especially when managing email lists and publishing schedules. Let’s see how each platform stacks up:

• Medium: offers basic scheduling for publishing. Email automation features are limited.
• Substack: allows scheduling of posts. Email automation is not a strong feature.
• WordPress: is highly customisable. Offers various plugins for scheduling and automation, including advanced email sequences through plugins.
• Kit: is known for its sophisticated automation features, including visual workflow builders and robust email sequence capabilities, particularly for evergreen sequences.
• Beehiiv: offers automated email sequences and post-scheduling features.

Integrations

Seamless integration with other tools can enhance your workflow and reach. Here is how each platform handles third-party connectivity:

• Medium: don’t offer integrations, primarily focusing on social media sharing.
• Substack: integration capabilities are restricted due to the lack of a public API.
• WordPress: stands out with its vast library of plugins, offering integration with countless third-party apps and services.
• Kit: boasts a wide array of integrations, including popular e-commerce and marketing platforms.
• Beehiiv: provides API access, webhook functionality, and integration with Zapier and Unsplash. However, integration options are more limited compared to Kit.

Support and Networking

A supportive community can provide valuable insights and connections. Here’s how these platforms foster community engagement:

• Medium: has a large, built-in community of readers and writers, offering opportunities for engagement and feedback.
• Substack: has an active user community on Reddit and online forums, providing support and discussions.
• WordPress: benefits from a massive global community, with numerous forums, online groups, and local meetups.
• Kit: Primarily focuses on supporting founders rather than fostering a broader community forum.
• Beehiiv: offers a dedicated Slack community for users to connect, seek support, and network.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding your audience and the performance of your content is essential. Here’s a breakdown of each platform’s analytics capabilities:

• Medium: provides basic analytics, focusing on views, reads, and engagement metrics.
• Substack: offers fundamental analytics, including subscriber growth and open rates.
• WordPress: offers a range of analytics plugins, including Google Analytics integration, providing in-depth data on website traffic and user behaviour.
• Kit: delivers insightful analytics, focusing on list growth, engagement scoring, and link-click tracking.
• Beehiiv: provides advanced analytics features, including 3D analytics visualisations, campaign metrics, and subscriber segmentation data.

Exporting Email List Subscriptions

When choosing a platform, the ability to export your email list is crucial for maintaining control over your data and ensuring flexibility if you decide to switch providers. Here’s how WordPress, Substack, Beehiiv, ConvertKit, and Medium compare in terms of email list export functionality:

• WordPress: exporting email lists depends on the plugin used. Popular plugins are likely to provide export options, as this is standard practice in email marketing.
• Substack: allows users to export their entire subscriber list easily. Frequent backups are recommended to facilitate switching to another platform.
• Beehiiv: emphasizes data ownership and offers an option to export subscriber data.
• Kit: supports exporting email lists
• Medium: is not designed as an email marketing platform, so it doesn’t provide readers list export functionality.

Monetising Your Content

Building a loyal following can open doors to monetisation through paid memberships and exclusive content. Here is how each platform facilitates this:

• Medium: has a Partner Program that allows creators to earn revenue based on member engagement with their content.
• Substack: heavily emphasizes paid subscriptions as a core monetisation strategy, allowing creators to set up paid memberships with ease. It has as well a limited advertising options, primarily through brand partnerships. Affiliate marketing is possible, but not a primary focus.
• WordPress: offers a variety of plugins for creating membership sites, managing paid subscriptions, advertising management, and integration with affiliate networks giving creators flexibility over content monetisation.
• Kit: enables creators to set up paid memberships and paywall exclusive content. It allows affiliate marketing as a monetisation strategy but doesn’t have an in-built ad network.
• Beehiiv: provides options for paid memberships and paywalls, allowing creators to monetise their content and build a subscriber base. It stands out with its integrated Ad Network and Boost Network, actively connecting creators with sponsors and providing additional advertising opportunities.

Costs

When selecting a platform for blogging or newsletters, understanding the costs involved is vital to ensure it aligns with your budget and long-term goals. Here’s a breakdown of the pricing models

• Medium: is free for writers to publish, but a $5/month membership fee applies to access premium content as a reader.
• Substack: is free to use but takes a 10% commission on paid subscriptions. Takes a 10% cut of any earnings through paid subscriptions. This revenue-sharing model can be cost-effective for creators with smaller subscriber bases but may add up as earnings grow. Additionally it charges $50 one time fee for custom domain connection.
• WordPress: itself is free, but costs can vary depending on hosting, themes, and plugins. Hosting typically starts at $5–$15 per month for basic plans, but premium options can cost significantly more.Custom themes and plugins may involve one-time or recurring fees, depending on your needs.
• Kit: offers a free plan with limited features, making it accessible for beginners. Paid plans start at $25/month and increase with the size of your subscriber list. Advanced features like automation and segmentation are typically included in higher-tier plans.
• Beehiiv: free “Launch” plan for up to 2,500 subscribers. Paid plans starting at $39/month, offers advanced features like analytics and greater subscriber capacity.

Potential Pitfalls to Consider

While each platform offers unique advantages, it’s crucial to be aware of potential drawbacks:

• Medium: has community guidelines that can lead to content removal or account suspension if violated.
• Substack: has content moderation policies that can result in content removal or account suspension.
• WordPress: self-hosted sites offer more control, reducing the risk of censorship. However, hosting providers may have their terms of service.
• Kit: details regarding censorship and account suspension policies are not readily available.
• Beehiiv: information regarding specific policies on censorship and account suspension is not easily accessible.

Expanding Your Reach with Cross-Posting Your Content

One of the first questions I had was: what happens if I cross-post my content on different platforms? At first, it seemed like a smart way to reach more people. But as I looked deeper, I realized there are a few potential pitfalls, like duplicate content affecting SEO or platform-specific rules that could cause issues.

Duplicate Content Concerns

Search engines, such as Google, can penalise websites with duplicate content as it might appear spammy. This can hurt your search engine rankings.

• Medium: Explicitly prohibits publishing duplicate content, either from the same or multiple accounts.
• Substack: Doesn’t have a specific policy against duplicate content, but it’s wise to consider how it might affect your SEO and reader experience.

One suggestion to avoid duplicate content issues is to publish on one platform a day or two before posting on another.

Canonical URLs

When cross-posting, you can indicate the original source of the article using a canonical URL. This tells search engines which version to prioritise in search results.

• Medium: Allows you to specify a canonical URL, acknowledging that the article was first published elsewhere.
• Substack: Does not support canonical URLs. It’s designed to be the original source of your content.

Best Practices for Cross-Posting

Publish on Substack first, then cross-post to platforms like Medium, which allow canonical URLs.

Don’t simply copy and paste the entire article. Rephrase sections, add new insights, and adapt the formatting to each platform’s style.

Disclose to your readers that the article has been published on another platform. This fosters transparency and avoids potential confusion.

Why not leverage multiple platforms?

Taking Control of My Online Presence

I decided to take control of my online presence by starting my own blog on WordPress. With one-click installers, the setup process were incredibly smooth—it didn’t require any prior WordPress or technical knowledge. Now, I have the freedom to personalize my blog’s design, optimize it for search engines, and explore features other platforms don’t offer.

Customizing My Blog Design

While I love the minimal design of platforms like Medium and Substack, finding a WordPress template that suited my taste wasn’t easy. It took me a full week of searching and tweaking to finally settle on a WordPress template I liked. After that, I spent another week configuring the essentials—plugins for customization, SEO, caching, and analytics. To make things more frustrating, I lost a lot of time wrestling with Google and Bing indexing tools. While the WordPress installation was straightforward, I hit a roadblock every time I needed server logs for debugging—I had to rely on support to provide them.

Engaging Readers with Substack

I believe email newsletters are powerful for engaging directly with readers. Instead of relying on WordPress plugins, I’ll use Substack to curate a weekly digest of my blog posts. This approach combines Substack’s excellent newsletter tools with WordPress’s SEO capabilities and customizations.

Substack also fosters a sense of community, allowing me to connect personally with readers and fellow writers—a key reason I chose it.

Amplifying My Reach with Twitter

To drive traffic back to my blog, I plan to regularly tweet about new posts. This way, I can reach a wider audience while encouraging them to explore my content.

Testing with Kit

Finally, I’ll experiment with Kit as a backup and explore its Creator Network to see how it works out. If it doesn’t meet my needs, it will still serve as a safety net for my most valuable asset—connection with my readers.

Final Thoughts on Choosing the Right Platform for Blogging or Newsletter

Ultimately, the best platform is the one that meets your needs and inspires you to create. Here are some factors to guide your decision:

• Is your primary focus on blogging, newsletters, or a combination of both?
• Are you comfortable managing technical aspects like hosting and website maintenance?
• How important is it for you to have complete control over your website’s design and functionality?
• Do you plan to monetize your content, and if so, how?
• Will you rely on a platform’s built-in audience, or are you prepared to build your own from scratch?

Don’t worry about getting it perfect right away—start small and adjust as you go.