Denk named Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Substack as the primary competitors to Beehiiv's core SaaS email platform. He described these as companies where, in his characterization, the platform is purely a cost to the publisher with no built-in monetization or growth tools.
On the ad marketplace side, Denk referenced Pave as a prior attempt at a newsletter marketplace model that he said did not deliver results, in his view, because it operated only as a marketplace without a full SaaS platform underneath it. Swapstack, which Denk described as a competitor to Pave, was acquired by Beehiiv in 2023. All characterizations of competitors are Denk's stated opinions and are not confirmed figures or assessments from those companies.