The Stack Brief: newsletter platforms tilt toward creators, and the automation price war heats up

Welcome to the first Stack Brief. Each week we pick the handful of SaaS changes that will actually affect what you pay or how you work, and skip the rest.

1. Two newsletter platforms, two bets on who pays

Kit, the platform formerly known as ConvertKit, and Beehiiv now sit at opposite ends of a clear fork. Kit’s free tier reaches 10,000 subscribers and its paid plans are priced around selling your own products and automations. Beehiiv’s free tier stops at 2,500, but its paid plans bundle an ad network and a referral program, so the platform is betting it can pay for itself out of your audience.

Why it matters: if you plan to sell something, the free runway on Kit is hard to beat. If you plan to grow a free list and monetise with sponsorships, Beehiiv’s higher price includes tools you would otherwise bolt on. Full breakdown in our ConvertKit vs Beehiiv comparison.

2. The automation meter is the story

We spent this week looking at how the three main automation platforms bill, and the conclusion is that the unit matters more than the price. Zapier counts tasks, Make counts credits, n8n counts whole executions. The same workflow can consume ten times more units on one than another. Read the analysis.

3. One comparison to read

Make vs n8n. Both are the usual answer to “Zapier is too expensive,” and they are built for different people: Make for non-developers who want a managed visual builder, n8n for technical teams who want to self-host and run high volumes. The comparison covers pricing, hosting and AI workflows.

Coming next week

A look at how per-seat pricing drives the software bill for small teams, and why most ten-person startups are paying for the same person in two tools.

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