Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started destroying For The Long Run Beehiiv.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I spent the last six months checking out various email and newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for writing newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very very easy to write and send emails, and gives me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get even more subscribers.
I think I’ve finally found the appropriate tool.
But, 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 system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to design, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally go with it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for rather time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure numerous newsletter designers look up to preferred e-newsletters with countless customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have terrific content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even extra clients.
So, I took place a quest to find out how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device really comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Because, any type of designer recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right newsletter stack (that scales) usually means using multiple different tools to aid achieve one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish referrals. It can get expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a platform that permits them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or content creator, you ought to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good sign that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment 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 gives you an internet site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to take advantage of different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding For The Long Run Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start creating,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sectors), 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you want to discuss, I recommend just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward user interface for composing.
Once you begin composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for various sorts of web content like videos, web links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot a lot more material features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture formats, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever before single point you can optimize with your email template because it’s a lot. Just try the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing system for any e-newsletter maker.
Here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to create and send out emails. I mentioned above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on a website. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a web site, and want individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (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 choices– a full size, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I mentioned a few worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to register for your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear many e-newsletter firms give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another avenue for expanding your email checklist.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I love regarding beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count For The Long Run Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and getting rid of 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 certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for many users.
I’m not exactly sure how the device economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has actually been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I don’t want to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I love Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Today, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my web site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow web connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would just add extra prices that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a great solution for anyone wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system much surpasses numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial articles typically. I just do when I in fact make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a pal.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.