Last August, when CNN's Oliver Darcy decided he wanted to leave the network and launch Status, an email newsletter focused on the media industry, he cast about for a platform that would allow him to customize the look and feel of his new venture so it didn't resemble every other media newsletter.

There was Substack, the leader in the newsletter industry, which boasted writers like Matthew Yglesias, Matt Taibbi and Roxane Gay. There was also Ghost, a less well-known open-source option that has particularly attracted users who want to self-host their content.

Instead, Darcy went with Beehiiv, an increasingly fierce competitor to Substack. He debuted Status in August 2024, and it has since grown to 85,000 subscribers, a portion of whom pay $14.95 a month for full access to the newsletter, putting him on track to top $1 million in annual recurring revenue this year.