Over 2 years earlier, I read one of my favorite email 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 Content Banks Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m commonly obtaining pitched various devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I invested the last six months experimenting with various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very simple to write and send out emails, and gives me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally located the right tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to style, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it involved finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter designers admire prominent e-newsletters with numerous customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have wonderful web content, lots of subscribers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to determine how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device truly understand newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any type of designer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right newsletter pile (that scales) commonly indicates utilizing numerous different devices to help attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that wants a platform that enables them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content developer, you must seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indication that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Content Banks Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand name design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you wish to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for composing.
As soon as you start composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various sorts of material like video clips, web links, images, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot much more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary point you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just check out the system for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it an excellent posting system for any type of newsletter developer.
Right here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely easy to compose and send e-mails. I mentioned above some of the important things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different options– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution tracking if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking functions– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area 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 developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to forward your emails to pals and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear several e-newsletter firms give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more avenue for growing your email listing.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this article.
Costs registrations
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription revenue is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be very lucrative depending upon what your newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that generates millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I love about beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Content Banks Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you whatever you need to begin and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for several customers.
I’m not sure just how the system business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and start sending newsletters for free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce premium options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However naturally, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my site building platform of selection (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 enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow review if you wish to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my internet site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a slow web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would simply add added prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the cons below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually develop a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anybody looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial blog posts often. I only do when I really use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.