Over two years earlier, I was reading among my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantaneously started tearing up ThriveLetter Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying out various email and e-newsletter systems to help build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent options for composing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to compose and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that aid me assess metrics and obtain even more clients.
I think I have actually finally found the ideal tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal 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 simple to layout, compose, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth 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 like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for quite some time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to finally releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter makers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have wonderful web content, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even much more clients.
So, I took place a search to identify how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly recognize newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Since, any designer understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right newsletter pile (that ranges) frequently implies utilizing several various tools to help achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that permits them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or web content maker, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s totally free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you in fact end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic platform utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own web site already, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed types, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding ThriveLetter Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand name design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you create and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you start composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various sorts of web content like video clips, links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot a lot more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, fonts, photo formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Here are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super simple to write and send out e-mails. I stated over some of things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of the better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on a site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you a website. However, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed form. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a complete size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. 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 additionally an option for attribution tracking if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, but I stated a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear many e-newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership profits is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count ThriveLetter Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement 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) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for several individuals.
I’m uncertain how the unit business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is certainly cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I like Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Today, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my internet site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow-moving web link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow type (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add added costs that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the cons right here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for any person seeking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unprecedented. 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 monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write review blog posts usually. I just do when I in fact make use of the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a pal.
I wish you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.