BEbeehiiv Financial Model
Marketplace Startup Financials (Free Excel Download)
Newsletter platform for creators to build, grow, and monetize email audiences - SaaS subscription + native ad network revenue.
professionals from Deloitte
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About this model
beehiiv is a newsletter platform for creators who want to publish, grow, and monetize an email audience. It combines creator software with a native advertising network, giving publishers a route to subscription-style platform tools and ad income.
At the time of the deck, the product was pre-revenue and preparing for launch, with early commitments from established Substack creators. The thesis was that creator migration and audience growth would build a large, monetizable network rather than a standalone email tool.
The model separates tiered SaaS revenue from advertising-network revenue. Creator additions, free-to-paid conversion, subscriber growth, upgrades, and churn build MRR, while total network subscribers, ad fill, and CPM determine advertising sales. The resulting P&L tests how product-led growth, creator retention, and sales investment affect runway.
A turnkey financial model
Live formulas, no hardcoded values
Outputs are driven by live formulas, so the workbook updates from its assumptions instead of relying on hardcoded results.
All assumptions in one tab
Inputs are clearly marked in the Assumptions tab and separated from calculations, making it clear what to change and what to leave intact.
Statements always balancing
For integrated-statement models, the balance sheet, cash flow, and supporting schedules tie through properly.
Distinct schedules for clarity
Debt, working capital, taxes, and cash flow can get messy quickly. We group calculations in clear schedules, not across disconnected tabs.
No hidden macros or external links
There are no unexplained external workbook links or macros to undermine auditability or portability.
Changes flow through the model
Update a key driver and see the impact carry through the forecast, financing, and return outputs. We never use hardcoded numbers in formulas.
About beehiiv
https:
How to build a detailed financial model for beehiiv
A complete walkthrough of the business, drivers, and assumptions behind the downloadable beehiiv model - distilled from its pitch deck and publicly available information.
Product & value proposition
- Newsletter creation and distribution (email + web, responsive, no-code customization)
- Paid subscription monetization (direct creator-to-reader)
- Native ad network: beehiiv sources advertisers; creators opt in; beehiiv takes 20% revenue share
- Referral program (best-in-class, modeled on Morning Brew)
- Advanced analytics: open rates, click rates, acquisition attribution, cohort analysis, segmentation
- Content discoverability layer
- Competitive positioning: Webflow site builder + Medium publishing + Substack distribution + LiveIntent ad network + Morning Brew referral program + Netflix discoverability - combined
- Team built Morning Brew's newsletter stack which sold for $75M
Market
- Creator economy: American internet creators earned ~$7B in 2017
- Creator economy market growth: estimated 10–15% YoY
- Newsletter-specific comps cited:
- Substack: 100,000+ subscribers paying for at least one newsletter; raised $17M+ (Andreessen Horowitz)
- Morning Brew acquired by Business Insider for $75M (Oct 2019)
- The Hustle acquired by HubSpot for $27M (Feb 2021)
- The Skimm raised $28M+ (Google Ventures)
- Ben Thompson's Stratechery: rumored >$3M profit in 2020
- LiveIntent: programmatic email ad platform reaching 250M+ people/month; estimated revenue $52M in 2019
Revenue model
Stream 1 - SaaS subscription
| Subscribers | Monthly price |
|---|---|
| Up to 1,000 | $0 (free) |
| 1,000 – 5,000 | $39 |
| 5,000 – 10,000 | $59 |
| 10,000 – 25,000 | $99 |
| 25,000 – 50,000 | $199 |
| 50,000 – 100,000 | $349 |
| 100,000 – 250,000 | $649 |
| 250,000+ | Custom |
Stream 2 - Ad network revenue share
- beehiiv receives 20% of gross ad spend placed through its network
- Example economics (single send): 20,000-subscriber list × $25 CPM = $500 gross → $400 publication revenue + $100 beehiiv revenue
- Participation optional for creators
Traction & metrics
- Pre-revenue at time of deck; product not yet launched
- Closed beta: 7 verbal commits from Substack creators with 5,000–85,000 subscribers and $0–$260,000 in annual revenue
- Demo dashboard shown: Tyler Denk's own publication - 71,897 total subscribers (+12% vs prior period), avg. open rate 58.16% (+2.02pp), avg. click rate 24.57% (−4.05pp) - this appears illustrative/prototype data
- No live paying customer count, MRR, or ARR reported
Unit economics
- No explicit CAC or LTV figures stated
- Gross margin structure implied: SaaS tier pricing has minimal marginal cost; ad network described as "zero marginal cost" to beehiiv
- Ad CPM benchmark: $25 CPM referenced as example
- Substack charges creators 10% of their subscription revenue - beehiiv's pitch is to undercut this with a flat SaaS fee
Competition / moat
- Direct competitors: Substack (dominant; 10% fee model; limited customization), Revue (acquired by Twitter Jan 2019), Mailchimp (migration destination for unhappy Substack users)
- Competitive matrix features compared: site builder, blog creation, email newsletter, direct subscription revenue, no fees on subscription revenue, targeted ad network, advanced customization
- Moat narrative: beehiiv claims feature superiority across all six dimensions vs. competitors; team's prior build of Morning Brew infra is the primary credibility anchor
- Substack vulnerability documented via social proof: creators publicly citing 10% fee pain, lack of referral program, no ad tools, limited customization, no integrations
Team & funding ask / use of funds
- Tyler Denk - Co-founder / CEO; background: Google, Morning Brew
- Benjamin Hargett - Co-founder / Co-CTO; background: Morning Brew
- "Two technical co-founders; years of experience working together; subject matter experts in email and publications"
Recommended financial model
- Archetype + why: SaaS ARR model with a second ad-revenue stream. Two revenue lines behave very differently - SaaS is a recurring cohort-based MRR build (tiered by subscriber count, upgrades as creators grow); ad revenue is transactional and scales with total network subscriber volume × ad fill rate × CPM. A combined SaaS + ad-network P&L is the right structure.
- Forecast horizon & granularity: 18 months monthly (matches the deck's own projection period), then annual for years 2–3.
- Key drivers & assumptions:
*SaaS stream:*
- New creators added per month
- Free-tier retention (churn from free)
- Paid conversion rate (free → any paid tier)
- Average subscriber count per creator at entry - determines which pricing tier they land in
- Creator subscriber list growth rate (upgrades creator to higher tier)
- Paid churn rate
*Ad network stream:*
- Total monetizable subscribers across network = sum of all creator subscriber counts
- Ad fill rate (% of network capacity filled with ads per send)
- Sends per creator per month
- CPM
- beehiiv revenue share: 20% of gross ad revenue
- Creator opt-in rate for ad network
*Cost assumptions:*
- Engineering headcount (primary cost)
- Average fully-loaded engineer cost
- Infrastructure/email sending costs (scale with email volume)
- G&A / other opex
- Marketing/CAC spend
*Targets from deck (anchor projections to):*
- Profitability within month 12
- $7.35M ARR by month 18
- $250k+ monthly operating profit by month 18
- Scenarios (Base / Bull / Bear - which variables flex):
- Base: CPM = $25, fill rate ramps to 60%, 200 new creators/month by M12, 20% free-to-paid conversion
- Bull: CPM = $35, fill rate = 75%, faster creator acquisition (400/month by M12), 30% paid conversion; hits $7.35M ARR target
- Bear: CPM = $15, fill rate = 30%, slow creator growth (100/month by M12), 10% paid conversion; profitability pushed to M16+
- Required sheets / outputs:
- Assumptions - all drivers in one place, color-coded vs
- Creator Cohort Model - monthly cohort tracking (new creators, free/paid split, tier distribution, churn)
- SaaS Revenue - MRR build by tier, upgrades/downgrades, churn
- Ad Network Revenue - network sub count × send frequency × fill rate × CPM × 20% take rate
- Headcount & Opex - team ramp, infra costs, marketing
- P&L Summary - revenue, gross profit, opex, operating profit/loss, cumulative cash burn
- KPI Dashboard - MRR, ARR, creator count (free/paid), network total subscribers, ad impressions, CAC (when applicable), LTV
Frequently asked
Is the beehiiv financial model free?+
Yes. The beehiiv model is a free Excel (.xlsx) download with live formulas. Sign up with your email and the workbook is yours to keep, review, and edit.
What's included in the model?+
A 5-year monthly forecast with P&L, cash flow and runway, valuation (exit multiple plus a DCF cross-check), MOIC/IRR returns, and unit economics, with live formulas throughout.
How was this model built?+
It was built from beehiiv's pitch deck and publicly available information, then structured to investment-banking standards as a fully editable Excel model.
Can I change the assumptions?+
Yes. You can change assumptions and the live formulas will recalculate in the downloadable Excel model.
Have more financial modelling questions? Contact us
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