Side-by-side comparison · Marketing & Ads
beehiiv vs Creatify vs Pencil
Everything that matters when choosing between them, in one place: our rating, what each can do, what they cost, and the trade-offs.
Comparing 3 tools, the maximum.
At a glance
Pick it if: Creators, founders and media brands who want to treat their newsletter as a proper channel.
Pick it if: Online stores and ad agencies that need a lot of short video ads to test without booking creators.
Pick it if: Brand and performance marketing teams that need lots of on-brand ad variations across many platforms.
Overview
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Newsletter platform with AI writing help, built-in growth tools and ways to get paid. | Turns a product link into video ads with AI presenters, ready for TikTok and Meta. | Makes on-brand image and video ads and launches them to ad platforms. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Paid |
| Starting price | From $59/mo | $15/mo | $14/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | Yes | No |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.2Winner | 4.0 | 3.7 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| FeaturesHow completely it covers its own job, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.0 | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Mobile app | Yes | No | No |
| Desktop app | No | No | No |
| Browser extension | No | – | – |
| API access | Yes | Yes | – |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | – | Yes |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | No | No |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Understands images | – | Yes | Yes |
| Makes images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Makes video | No | Yes | Yes |
| Writes code | No | No | No |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Learns your brand or style | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works in many languages | Yes | Yes | – |
| Capabilities score | 11/ 17 | 11/ 17 | 9/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | FreeOur pick Free Anyone starting a newsletter from zero. | Free Free Trying it out before you pay. | CoreOur pick $14/mo, or $11/mo billed yearly A small team trying AI ads. |
Lite From $59/mo, or $49/mo billed yearly Writers ready to earn from sponsors or paid tiers. | Standard $15/mo, or $10/mo billed yearly A small store making a few ads a month. | Growth $55/mo, or $44/mo billed yearly Teams making ads every week or for several brands. | |
Pro From $109/mo, or $95/mo billed yearly Publications that want their own brand and deeper analytics. | ProOur pick $55/mo, or $38/mo billed yearly Brands testing ads every week. | Pro Custom Large brands and agencies. | |
Enterprise Custom Media companies with several large publications. | Max $95/mo, or $66/mo billed yearly Heavier users and small teams. | ||
Business $195/mo, or $136/mo billed yearly Agencies and in-house teams. | |||
Enterprise Custom Large teams needing custom terms. | |||
| Which plan to pick | Stay on Free until you have a few hundred engaged readers; it has everything you need to write and grow. Move to Lite when you want sponsor revenue or paid subscriptions, and to Pro when the beehiiv branding starts to bother you or your brand. | Pro is the plan that makes Creatify worth it, because ad cloning, competitor tracking and the ad agent start there. Try Standard or the free plan first to see how many credits your typical video uses. The API is priced separately, from $99 a month. | Core is cheap enough to test with real campaigns. Move to Growth when 50 generations a month runs out, which happens fast if you resize into many formats. Pro is for enterprise teams and is sold through a demo. |
Key features
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
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Pros and cons
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | beehiiv | Creatify | Pencil |
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Questions people ask
Which is better, beehiiv, Creatify or Pencil?
beehiiv scores highest overall in our ratings (beehiiv 4.2/5, Creatify 4.0/5 and Pencil 3.7/5). beehiiv is best for launching a newsletter and growing a list with referrals. Creatify is best for UGC-style video ads from a product link and testing many hooks and versions of one ad. Pencil is best for making many ad variations from one brief and resizing ads for every platform.
Which is cheaper, beehiiv, Creatify or Pencil?
beehiiv: There's a free plan, and paid plans start at From $59/mo. Creatify: There's a free plan, and paid plans start at $15/mo. Pencil: There's no free plan. Paid plans start at $14/mo.
How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability.
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