Over two years earlier, I read among my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly began wrecking Popular Beehiiv Newsletters.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic options for composing e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to write and send out emails, and offers me tools that assist me examine metrics and obtain more clients.
I think I have actually lastly found the appropriate device.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly opt for it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter developers respect prominent newsletters with countless customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have terrific web content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at extra clients.
So, I went on a quest to determine exactly how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Because, any type of creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) typically implies utilizing several various devices to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a platform that permits them to send customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or content maker, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to start utilizing beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Popular Beehiiv Newsletters
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have described info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning creating,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to discuss, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly user interface for composing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for various types of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot much more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary thing you can maximize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it an excellent publishing system for any kind of newsletter designer.
Here are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very easy to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out over several of the things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or with embed types.
If you already have a website, and desire people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various options– a full size, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution tracking if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, yet I discussed a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem several newsletter firms provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you another method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of the important things I love regarding beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Popular Beehiiv Newsletters.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get started and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for numerous individuals.
I’m not sure just how the system business economics work on this, however beehiiv is definitely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However obviously, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my website building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Now, there actually is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my site a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. But I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would just include extra prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any person wanting to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system much surpasses numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively affordable for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation posts typically. I only do when I actually utilize the device myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.