Over 2 years ago, I read among my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and immediately started wrecking Substack Vs Beehiiv Vs ConvertKit.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for creating e-newsletters. Yet I could not locate one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter designs, makes it extremely easy to create and send emails, and offers me tools that help me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I think I have actually finally discovered the ideal device.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly select it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary newsletter system for rather a long time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to ultimately releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter makers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have excellent content, lots of customers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at extra customers.
So, I went on a search to determine just how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually understand e-newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer development.
Since, any designer recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) usually indicates using multiple various tools to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material developer, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indicator that individuals like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Substack Vs Beehiiv Vs ConvertKit
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you produce and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you design your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly user interface for composing.
When you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your web content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for various sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and change some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, fonts, photo styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform completely free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a fantastic posting system for any e-newsletter developer.
Below are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very easy to create and send e-mails. I discussed above several of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a website. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or via embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various options– a complete size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to friends and associates and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I have actually appear numerous e-newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for growing your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Substack Vs Beehiiv Vs ConvertKit.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain how the device business economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I love Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a sluggish net link. Yet I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include added expenses that I do not need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will at some point create a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual seeking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses many that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation articles usually. I just do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.