Over two years back, I read among my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and immediately started wrecking Beehiiv API Docs.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m typically getting pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different email and newsletter systems to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to create and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me examine metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally discovered the right device.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. 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 newsletter platform that makes it very easy to design, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly select it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern newsletter platform for fairly time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter creators look up to preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific content, tons of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to identify exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right newsletter stack (that ranges) often means utilizing several different tools to aid accomplish one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material creator, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you only 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 an excellent sign that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one service for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv API Docs
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sectors), Grow 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and easy to use user interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for various sorts of web content like videos, links, images, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image styles, and more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Right here are several of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very simple to compose and send out emails. I mentioned over several of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various options– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, however I mentioned a few issues I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem lots of newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more avenue for expanding your email list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription income is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative depending on what your newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of things I enjoy about beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv API Docs.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support 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 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for numerous users.
I’m unsure just how the device business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized font styles.
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you wish to find out more.
Today, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my web site a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow net connection. But I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow form (which I like making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would just include extra costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any person aiming to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far surpasses numerous 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 likewise fairly affordable for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial blog posts typically. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.