Over 2 years earlier, I read one of my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and instantaneously began destroying Marketing Max Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent developer is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched various devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I invested the last six months trying out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for composing newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it extremely simple to create and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally located the appropriate device.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to style, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the famous newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite a long time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it involved lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter creators admire preferred e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have fantastic material, lots of customers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at more customers.
So, I went on a quest to find out exactly 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 even more customers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this device truly 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 a few of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that scales) frequently suggests making use of several different tools to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that wants a platform that enables them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or content designer, you ought to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own website already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The 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 certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, exterior embed types, and a lot more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those searching for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Marketing Max Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down into sectors), 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
When you begin writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various kinds of content like videos, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single thing you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Simply check out the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a wonderful posting system for any e-newsletter designer.
Below are a few of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly easy to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv website or with embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s also an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, yet I discussed a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your listing to ahead your emails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional opportunity for growing your e-mail list.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership income is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of things I love regarding beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Marketing Max Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to costs subscriptions. 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 assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m unsure how the device economics service this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However of course, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow review if you want to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they tend to decrease my site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s extremely obvious when you’re on a sluggish web link. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow kind (which I love utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would just add added costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages below. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually develop a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather low-cost wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation articles frequently. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.