Paid newsletter, community or membership: which subscription model should you choose?

heyhey plan details updated; verification dates for the other sources are given in the text.

These three models differ in one thing, and it isn’t price: what you have to deliver each month so that people don’t cancel. In a paid newsletter you produce all the value yourself, every week, indefinitely. In a community, the members produce part of it, and your job is moderation and keeping things moving. In a membership, the value is a growing library of material plus access to you.

A few numbers worth knowing before you choose. Median monthly churn for paid newsletters ranges from 5.06% (Food & Drink) to 16.67% (Money & Finance), two to five times more than in a typical SaaS business, where it’s 3.22%. At 8% monthly churn, half your base turns over in less than a year. The median conversion rate from a free list to a paid subscription is 0.62%, six paying subscribers per thousand readers.

And a third number, the one about money: with each of these models, an intermediary’s commission comes back every month, on every payment from every subscriber. Substack and Patreon take 10% each plus payment processing, and YouTube takes 30% of channel memberships. On your own platform there’s no commission at all: on heyhey it’s 0% on every plan, and with 200 subscribers at AED 39 a month, the difference compared with a 10% intermediary is around AED 780 a month.

Contents

1. The three models side by side
2. Paid newsletter
3. Paid community
4. Membership
5. What does an intermediary cost for each?
6. What churn is normal?
7. Which model suits whom?
8. Frequently asked questions
9. Methodology
10. Find out what your audience pays for before you choose a model

The three models side by side

Churn data: beehiiv, “The State of Paid Newsletters 2026” (published 22 June 2026) and Recurly Research (July 2026 update). Neither discloses its sample, so treat the figures as an order of magnitude, not as a measurement of your local market.

The most important row is the third. A model where a break shows immediately demands a different way of working from one where you can skip a month.

Paid newsletter

The easiest to launch and the hardest to keep going.

Launching takes as long as connecting payments: according to beehiiv, the median time from starting a newsletter to switching on a paid subscription is 45 days. So you don’t have to wait years; you do need someone to offer it to.

Keeping it going, on the other hand, is relentless, because the entire value of the product is your writing, every week, with no end. There’s no snowball effect: a subscriber in month eighteen isn’t paying for the archive, but for the next issue. That’s why churn in this category is the highest of the three.

One number that sets your planning: the median conversion rate from a free to a paid list is 0.62%, according to beehiiv data from June 2026, drawn from thousands of publications between 2021 and 2026. The “5–10% of your free readers will upgrade” rule, repeated by half the guides out there, is eight to sixteen times higher than that median. It comes from an informal tip Substack gave around 2020.

Paid community

A model with the opposite split of work: the hardest start and the easiest upkeep, on one condition.

That condition is critical mass. A community where nobody posts isn’t cheap to run, it’s dead, and people leave it faster than a newsletter, because the lack of value is visible the moment they log in. So the first months are mostly your work: asking questions, answering, drawing conversations out.

Once you pass that threshold, the model starts working in your favour, because the members produce part of the value. What’s left is moderation and making sure things don’t go quiet.

A technical point worth knowing when you compare tools: community features are sometimes only available on higher plans. On heyhey, community is available on every plan, Starter included. Pro removes the limit on products and pages.

Membership

Access to a growing library of material, usually plus some form of contact with you: Q&A sessions, comments, consultations.

The most forgiving model, because value builds up over time. A subscriber who joins in month eighteen gets eighteen months of material at once, and that’s a sales argument a newsletter doesn’t have. If you skip a month, the library is still there.

It does demand the most at the start, though, because an empty library doesn’t sell at all. It’s usually built from material you already have: a course you previously sold as a one-off, a webinar archive, a set of templates.

According to Recurly, churn in the Education category is 4.99% a month, below paid newsletters, though above typical SaaS.

What does an intermediary cost for each?

Verified 18 August 2026 against the providers’ terms and price lists.

With a subscription, this difference works differently from one-off sales, because the commission isn’t a one-off cost: it comes back every month, on every payment from every subscriber, for as long as the subscription lasts. With 200 subscribers at AED 39 and a 10% intermediary, you hand over AED 780 a month, or AED 9,360 a year. heyhey’s Growth plan, which switches on recurring payments, costs AED 199 a month (excl. VAT) and doesn’t grow with your subscriber base.

What churn is normal?

This is the most common mistake in guides on the topic: carrying SaaS benchmarks over to creator subscriptions. The levels are completely different.

According to beehiiv, the average subscriber lifetime is 6 to 20 months depending on the category, and median lifetime value sits between $83 and $230.

There’s one more number worth knowing before you start optimising your content: Recurly’s data shows that of an overall monthly churn rate of 3.60%, 1.25 percentage points are involuntary cancellations, in other words failed payments. That’s about 35% of all cancellations. Expired cards, exceeded limits, failed 3D Secure checks, changed banks. People who wanted to keep paying.

Memberful takes an interesting position here: it deliberately doesn’t publish churn benchmarks. Its argument: steady churn is healthy; what needs attention is churn that rises and stays high.

The full subscription maths, including how many subscribers you need and what to do about failed payments: how to build a paid subscription and predictable revenue.

Which model suits whom?

You write regularly and have an email list. A paid newsletter, because you can launch it fastest. Just set your target at the 0.62% median, not the promised five per cent, and be ready for the highest churn of the three.

You have an active audience whose members already talk to each other. A community. If they don’t talk yet, check first whether they will, before you start charging for it.

You have an archive: courses, webinars, templates. A membership. It’s the best way to earn again from material you’ve already produced, and its value grows every month.

You don’t know which one yet. Start with one-off sales on the free plan and see what people actually pay you for. A subscription is best launched to an audience that has already bought something from you. You can test that for AED 0 on heyhey’s Starter plan, and switch on recurring payments later by moving to Growth at AED 199 a month (excl. VAT).

Frequently asked questions

Which subscription model is best for a creator?

There isn’t one. You can launch a paid newsletter fastest (according to beehiiv, the median time from starting a newsletter to switching on the paid version is 45 days), but it has the highest churn, from 5.06% to 16.67% a month depending on the category, because you produce all the value yourself every week. A community is the hardest to start and the easiest later on, provided you reach a critical mass of active people. A membership needs the most material up front, but it builds up value: a subscriber who joins in month eighteen gets eighteen months of content at once.

What churn is normal for a paid subscription?

It depends on the category, and carrying SaaS benchmarks over is the main source of confusion here. According to Recurly (July 2026 update), SaaS has 3.22% a month, Ecommerce 4.25% and Education 4.99%. Paid newsletters, according to beehiiv (June 2026), range from 5.06% in Food & Drink through 5.47% in News to 16.67% in Money & Finance. At 8% monthly churn, half your base turns over in less than a year, so a subscription isn’t passive income: you have to keep adding new subscribers to replace the ones who leave.

How many people on a free list upgrade to a paid subscription?

The median is 0.62%, roughly six paying subscribers for every thousand free readers. That’s beehiiv data from June 2026, drawn from thousands of publications between 2021 and 2026. The “5–10% of your readers will upgrade” rule repeated in guides is eight to sixteen times higher than that median and comes from an informal tip Substack gave around 2020. A plan built on 5% conversion falls apart by month three; a plan built on 1% doesn’t.

How much do Substack, Patreon and YouTube take?

Substack and Patreon each take 10% plus payment processing (Patreon on its standard plan since August 2025). YouTube takes 30% of channel memberships, plus 15–30% on purchases through iOS and Android. With a subscription, that commission comes back on every monthly payment. On your own platform there’s no commission: on heyhey it’s 0% on every plan.

Can you run a subscription without an intermediary?

Yes, on your own platform with recurring payments. The cost difference grows in direct proportion to your success: with 200 subscribers at AED 39 a month, a 10% intermediary takes around AED 780 a month, or AED 9,360 a year, while a plan fee doesn’t change with your base. On heyhey, recurring payments switch on from the Growth plan at AED 199 a month (excl. VAT), with zero commission on every payment. And there’s something you can’t buy from an intermediary: the subscriber list, the checkout and the brand stay yours.

How much should a subscription cost?

Price changes the scale you need more than anything else. At AED 39 a month, AED 5,000 of revenue takes about 128 subscribers; at AED 99, it takes 51. At the median conversion rate of 0.62%, the first option means a list of more than twenty thousand people, the second a much smaller one. That’s why price matters more for subscriptions than for one-off products: it decides not only your revenue, but whether you can reach your target at all with the audience you have.

Do I need a separate tool for my community?

No, if your sales platform has one built in; just check which plan it starts on. On heyhey, community is available on every plan, Starter included, and Pro removes the limit on products and pages. It’s worth keeping two things apart: a subscription is a recurring payment, while a community is a place for conversation. You can have one without the other.

Methodology

Where the numbers come from. Churn and involuntary cancellations: Recurly Research, July 2026 update, sample not disclosed by the publisher. Newsletter churn, conversion, subscriber lifetime and lifetime value: beehiiv, “The State of Paid Newsletters 2026”, published 22 June 2026, data from 2021–2026, sample described as “thousands of publications”, exact size not disclosed. Commissions: the providers’ terms and price lists, checked 18 August 2026 (Substack, Patreon and YouTube). Memberful’s position on benchmarks: the company’s own materials.

A word on transferability. All the churn and conversion data comes from English-language markets. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not as a measurement of your local market.

Prices excl. VAT. heyhey plan prices are shown excluding VAT.

What this article doesn’t cover. We don’t go into tax or accounting formalities.

heyhey is our product. We write about it on our own blog and say so openly, including the fact that recurring payments start on the Growth plan, while community is available on every plan, Starter included. Intermediaries’ commissions come from their own terms and price lists.

Find out what your audience pays for before you choose a model

A subscription is best launched to people who have already bought something from you. You can test that for AED 0: heyhey’s Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no card and takes no commission on sales. Put one product on sale, see who buys it, and only then move to the Growth plan at AED 199 a month (excl. VAT), which switches on recurring payments, with zero commission on every payment, however many subscribers you have.

Sources:

• Recurly Research, churn and involuntary cancellation benchmarks, July 2026 update
• beehiiv, “The State of Paid Newsletters 2026”, published 22 June 2026
• Substack, Patreon, YouTube: official pricing and creator terms, accessed 18 August 2026
• Memberful, position on churn benchmarks: company materials
• heyhey, pricing and plans: pricing page