beehiiv API, Webhooks, Send API and MCP: What Each Plan Unlocks

beehiiv has a public REST API on every plan, webhooks on paid plans, a Send API on Pro, and an MCP server that connects the account to AI tools. People search for the beehiiv API about 260 times a month in the United States, and as many again under the misspelling beehiv api. This page explains what each interface does, which plan unlocks it, and where the documentation and the pricing page disagree. Everything comes from beehiiv's developer documentation, help centre and pricing file, read on 9 October 2026.

The short answer

Interface	Free	Lite	Pro	Enterprise
REST API	Yes (Send API excluded)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Webhooks	No	3	Unlimited	Unlimited
Send API	No	No	Yes	Yes
MCP for AI tools	Read-only	Read and write	Read and write	Read and write
Zapier and Make	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
WordPress integration, S3 data sync	No	No	No	Yes

From the vendor's pricing file ^[3] and developer documentation ^[55].

## The REST API

The developer documentation describes the API as a way to "enrich your user records with custom fields from external forms, manage lists and segmentation programmatically" ^[60]. In practice it covers subscriptions, posts, segments, custom fields, tiers, automations and webhooks. Authentication is by API key as a bearer token; an OAuth2 authorization code flow is documented for integrations that act on behalf of other beehiiv users ^[56].

Rate limit. The developer documentation is precise: 180 requests per minute, counted per organization ^[54]. Exceeding it returns a 429 error, and each response carries RateLimit-Limit, RateLimit-Remaining and RateLimit-Reset headers ^[54].

Where the pricing page disagrees. The pricing file lists the API rate limit by plan as "Low" on Free, "Standard" on Lite, "High" on Pro and "Custom" on Enterprise ^[3], without numbers. The developer page gives one number for everyone. Until beehiiv reconciles them, build to 180 a minute and treat anything higher as something to confirm with support.

What 180 a minute means. Three requests a second. Syncing 30,000 subscribers one call at a time takes about 167 minutes; paginated list reads are much faster. Our arithmetic. The documentation recommends a queue with exponential backoff, and notes that Zapier and Make "automatically adhere to our rate limit" ^[54].

Pagination and authentication

List endpoints use cursor-based pagination, which the documentation recommends; offset-based pagination is marked deprecated ^[61]. Each page returns up to 100 results, with a next cursor and a has-more flag ^[61]. At 100 results a page and 180 requests a minute, reading a list of 100,000 subscribers takes about six minutes. Our arithmetic.

API keys are created in the account and passed as bearer tokens. For integrations that act on behalf of other beehiiv users, the documentation describes a standard OAuth2 authorization code flow, with PKCE required for public clients, and asks developers to contact support to register an OAuth client ^[56]. The getting-started page offers a downloadable OpenAPI specification ^[60].

## Webhooks

Webhooks notify your system when something happens: a subscription created, confirmed, upgraded, downgraded, paused or deleted; a post sent or scheduled; a podcast episode published ^[55]. They are paid-only: the documentation reserves them for paid users on Lite and above ^[55]. Lite allows three endpoints, Pro unlimited ^[3].

Delivery runs through Svix, and every request carries svix-id, svix-timestamp and svix-signature headers that you should verify with the endpoint's signing secret ^[55]. Downgrading to Free disables webhook endpoints ^[5].

Three endpoints on Lite is a real constraint. A newsletter that wants to notify a CRM, a community tool and an analytics warehouse uses all three; a fourth means Pro.

The Send API

The Send API is how you send a beehiiv post from another system. It is not a raw email relay. The help centre explains that it uses the Create post endpoint "to mirror the structure of the beehiiv Post Builder", so API posts use the same blocks as the editor, including Ad Network placements and polls ^[32]. It is explicit about the limit: "we do not currently offer the ability to send 100% custom HTML email." ^[32]. Every post keeps beehiiv's fixed email head and required footer.

The Send API is a Pro and Enterprise feature ^[32]. At 1,000 subscribers that means $109 a month, or $95 billed annually ^[3].

Where the vendor disagrees with itself. The pricing file lists "Send API (not in trial)" ^[3]. The Send API help article says "This feature is available on the Free Trial" ^[32], and the trial article lists the Send API among features you can use during the trial ^[7]. Two of three sources say yes; test it in the trial rather than relying on either.

When it is the wrong tool. For receipts, password resets and other transactional email, beehiiv is not built for the job; a transactional email service is. The Send API is for newsletters generated by other systems: a daily digest assembled from a database, or a post triggered by a CMS.

## The MCP server

beehiiv's MCP server connects the account to AI clients that support the Model Context Protocol. The help centre names "Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex" and says it is "available to all beehiiv users with no waitlist or paid plan required." ^[26]. Free accounts get read access; creating, editing and managing content through the MCP requires a paid plan ^[26].

Through it an AI assistant can create and edit posts, manage tags, custom fields and segments, build automations, manage products and tiers, view ad offers and sponsorships, edit site metadata and manage redirects ^[26]. The pricing file adds AI scheduling and sending through the MCP on Pro ^[7].

For a writer, the MCP is the most practical interface: it does in conversation what the API does in code, with the same permissions as the account.

MCP or API: which to build on

The help centre answers this directly. The API is "versioned with a long-lived contract, meaning beehiiv will not introduce breaking changes or deprecations without advance notice" ^[26]. The MCP is not: "beehiiv continuously improves MCP tools to better serve the agent use case, so response formats and behaviors may change over time." ^[26].

The rule that follows is simple. Build production integrations, such as a CRM sync or a signup pipeline, on the API. Use the MCP for work done through an AI assistant, where a changed response format is absorbed by the model rather than breaking your code.

Agencies managing several clients can connect more than one beehiiv account to the same AI tool by adding a different parameter to the MCP address for each connection, each inheriting the role permissions of the account it signs in with ^[26].

Webhook events you can subscribe to

The developer index lists webhook events in four groups :

Group	Events
Subscription	Created, confirmed, deleted, upgraded, downgraded, paused, resumed; tier paused, resumed, created
Post	Sent, updated, scheduled
Podcast	Episode published, updated, archived, deleted; private feed activated, access revoked, deactivated
Newsletter list	Subscribed, unsubscribed, paused, resumed

The subscription events are the ones most integrations need: upgraded and downgraded track paid status, deleted tracks churn.

Exporting data by API

Subscriber exports can be triggered programmatically through an export endpoint, but it is gated: "This is a gated feature and requires enabling for your publication." ^[28]. You request access through support before using it. Dashboard exports, by contrast, are self-serve on every plan.

Zapier and Make

beehiiv maintains official Zapier and Make integrations, and both respect the rate limit automatically ^{[54] [55]}. In Zapier, webhooks appear as triggers; in Make, you point beehiiv's webhook at Make's custom webhook module ^[55]. The integrations page lists Stripe, HubSpot, Shopify, Webflow and others natively ^[27].

Integrations by use case

Use case	Interface	Plan needed
Add subscribers from your own forms	REST API	Free
Read subscriber lists into a spreadsheet	REST API, paginated	Free
Tag readers from a quiz or survey tool	REST API, custom fields	Free
Notify a CRM when a reader pays	Webhook, subscription upgraded	Lite
Sync paid status to a community tool	Webhooks	Lite (3 endpoints)
Draft posts from an AI assistant	MCP, write access	Lite
Publish a digest built by a script	Send API	Pro
Notify more than three systems	Webhooks	Pro
Mirror data to your own S3 bucket	S3 data sync	Enterprise
Publish to WordPress	WordPress integration	Enterprise

From the vendor's pricing file and documentation ^{[3] [55] [32] [26]}.

Segments and custom fields

Segments are unlimited on every plan, with a segment depth of 20 conditions ^[3]. Custom fields are on every plan too, and are the main way the API enriches subscriber records ^[60]. Publishing to a segment, however, starts on Lite ^[3]: on Free, the API can build segments you cannot yet send to.

Another place the documents disagree

The pricing file's podcast table lists Podcast API & webhooks as included on Free ^[3], while the developer documentation reserves webhooks for paid users on Lite and above ^[55]. The likely reading is that podcast-specific endpoints differ from account webhooks, but neither page says so. If you are building on podcast events from a free account, test it before you rely on it.

Testing before you build

The Send API help article recommends testing calls through the command-line tester in beehiiv's API reference or with tools such as Postman or Insomnia ^[32]. A post needs at minimum a title and either blocks or body content, sent to the publication's posts endpoint with a bearer token ^[32]. Test against a second publication rather than your live one; on Lite and Pro you have three and ten ^[3].

What is Enterprise only

• WordPress integration and S3 data sync ^[3].
• SSO and SAML, audit logs and granular role permissions ^[3].
• A custom API rate limit, by the pricing file's account ^[3].
• An agent audit log, no-training and zero-retention commitments, and a bring-your-own model key for AI features ^[3].

Three integrations, priced

A signup form on your own site feeding beehiiv. The REST API on any plan, or a beehiiv embed. Cost: $0 on Free.

New paid subscribers sent to a CRM. One webhook on subscription.upgraded: Lite, from $59 a month or $588 a year at 1,000 subscribers ^[3].

A daily digest built by a script and sent as a newsletter. The Send API: Pro, from $109 a month or $1,140 a year ^[3].

Common integration mistakes

1. Building to an undocumented rate limit. Use 180 a minute ^[54].
2. Skipping webhook signature checks. Verify the Svix headers ^[55].
3. Expecting raw HTML sends. The Send API keeps beehiiv's layout and footer ^[32].
4. Forgetting the downgrade. Webhooks stop on Free; integrations that depend on them fail silently ^[5].
5. Counting on the export endpoint without asking for access first ^[28].

## How the API affects our score

Our integrations score for beehiiv is 3.4: an open API on every plan, an MCP on every plan, and official Zapier and Make integrations, held back by a Pro-only Send API, three webhooks on Lite, Enterprise-only WordPress and data sync, no native mobile app, and documentation that disagrees with the pricing page on rate limits and trial access.