How a Queer Sports Newsletter Doubled Its Revenue After Leaving Substack

At a Glance

• $11,945 → $21,773 Annual net revenue in 8 months
• 9.5% → 12% Free-to-paid conversion rate
• 355 → 437 Paid subscribers after migration
• ~50% Open rates maintained after platform switch
• Deliverability up after moving to beehiiv

About Out of Your League: A Queer Sports Newsletter Built on Values

Frankie de la Cretaz is an award-winning journalist who built Out of Your League around a simple but powerful idea: queerness is a politic. The newsletter does not just cover who athletes date. It examines sport through the lens of dismantling oppressive structures and systems. The result is a deeply engaged community of like-minded readers who gather around the newsletter, a monthly LGBTQ+ sports book club, and an active Discord server where members watch games together and debate the latest sports drama.

As a full-time freelancer in a rapidly shifting media landscape, every dollar matters to Frankie. That reality shaped every platform decision they made, including the one that eventually led them to beehiiv.

Why Out of Your League Left Substack

For years, Frankie published Out of Your League on Substack. But over time, Substack's actions made it impossible to stay.

The core issue was not a business complaint. It was a values one. Substack had begun recruiting and platforming white supremacists and transphobes, and for a newsletter built explicitly on queerness and justice, that was untenable. Frankie did not feel good continuing to publish on a platform that elevated voices directly opposed to everything Out of Your League stood for.

The financial structure compounded the frustration. Substack was taking a significant cut of revenue, and Frankie had limited control over the subscriber data and email list they had spent years building.

Then there was the fear of leaving. Discoverability on Substack felt like a moat. Frankie worried that migrating would mean losing subscribers and stunting the newsletter's growth. And losing subscribers, for a journalist whose newsletter is a meaningful portion of their income, was not an abstract concern. It was an existential one.

The Platform Conflicts & Business Risks That Forced the Move

• Platform values directly in conflict with Out of Your League's editorial identity
• Concern about losing discoverability and growth momentum
• Fear of subscriber loss during migration
• Substack's revenue structure limiting take-home income

How Out of Your League Migrated to beehiiv

Why Frankie de la Cretaz Chose beehiiv Over Other Platforms

What drew Frankie to beehiiv over other alternatives was straightforward: the people. Every person they spoke to during the decision-making process was helpful, accessible, and knowledgeable. Other newsletters Frankie respected had been having great experiences on the platform, and that social proof mattered.

beehiiv also solved the financial equation. By taking a smaller cut of revenue and enabling tiered subscription options, it gave readers the ability to choose how much they wanted to support the work. And critically, Frankie retained full control over their subscriber list and data, making the newsletter portable if circumstances ever changed.

The Migration Process: What It Took to Move from Substack to beehiiv

Frankie is candid about what the migration involved. Because Out of Your League has a larger subscriber base than many independent newsletters, the process was genuinely difficult. But the difficulty was almost entirely on Substack's end, specifically the data export Substack provided. beehiiv itself was not the source of friction.

When issues arose, beehiiv's support team was available almost immediately. Support tickets were resolved within hours. There was an adjustment period of roughly six months before the technical issues that accompanied migrated subscribers fully settled, but Frankie is clear: that was a Substack export problem, not a beehiiv platform problem.

Growth Results After Migrating to beehiiv: Revenue, Subscribers & More

The community that had built up around Out of Your League understood the move. Many of Frankie's readers hold marginalized identities and share similar values, so they were genuinely glad to see the newsletter leave Substack. A meaningful number of them upgraded to higher-cost subscription tiers after the migration as a direct show of support.

Frankie also gained a new category of reader: people who had not been willing to give money to Substack on principle, but who were happy to pay for the work once it moved to a platform they felt comfortable supporting.

Why beehiiv Subscribers Convert to Paid at Higher Rates

On beehiiv, subscribers arrive organically and through deliberate intent. Because newsletters land in inboxes rather than an app-based feed, the people who stayed through the migration and those who found Out of Your League afterward were making an active choice to be there. That intentionality translates directly into upgrade behavior.

How Higher Revenue Enabled Editorial Investment and Growth

The financial shift unlocked by moving to beehiiv has had compounding effects on the newsletter itself. With more revenue coming in, Frankie has been able to hire an editor regularly, bring on a graphic designer for a rebrand, and, most significantly, secure a media insurance policy. That last one is not a small detail. For a journalist who wants to publish investigative work, having legal protection is the difference between publishing that story or not.

beehiiv Features That Made the Difference

Three features stood out for Frankie:

• Discord integration made it significantly easier for subscribers to join the community server directly from the newsletter
• The support staff was, in Frankie's words, worth the move on its own
• Legal support through beehiiv has removed what had been the single biggest barrier to Frankie publishing ambitious journalistic work

Growth Results After Migrating to beehiiv: Revenue, Subscribers & More

The metrics tell a clear story. On Frankie's last full day on Substack, Out of Your League had 3,664 subscribers (3,309 free, 355 paid). Eight months after migrating to beehiiv, the newsletter had 3,789 subscribers, with 437 paid and 3,352 free.

The headline number is revenue. Frankie's annual net went from $11,945 to $21,773 in that same eight-month window. That nearly 82% increase came from beehiiv's lower revenue share and the tiered subscription structure that gave readers more ways to pay for the work they wanted to support.

Free-to-paid conversion climbed from 9.5% to 12%. Open rates held steady at approximately 50%. And deliverability improved after the switch.

The fears about subscriber loss did not materialize in the way Frankie expected. Yes, some subscribers dropped off after the migration, but the analysis matters: most of those were bot accounts or low-engagement subscriptions that Substack had been counting as part of the free numbers. The readers who stayed chose to stay. And the readers who joined beehiiv joined because they genuinely wanted to read the work.

Writing quality improved too. Without the pressure of Substack's Notes feed algorithm pushing Frankie toward engagement-optimized content, the writing could focus on what actually mattered to the community.

Key Takeaways: Lessons from Migrating a Newsletter from Substack to beehiiv

• Platform values and creator values need to align, and misalignment has real business costs
• Migration from Substack to beehiiv is manageable, and the difficulty lies in Substack's data export, not beehiiv's onboarding
• Readers who find a newsletter organically convert to paid at higher rates because they are there by genuine choice
• Revenue infrastructure (lower platform fees, tiered subscriptions) compounds quickly when a newsletter has an engaged audience
• Financial stability from a better revenue structure enables investment in editorial quality, which drives further growth

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