Over two years ago, I read one of my favorite email e-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 promptly began tearing up Beehiiv Assistant Editor.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is difficult. I’m usually obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying out different email and e-newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for creating e-newsletters. But I could not find one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me examine metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I’ve finally located the best device.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for rather time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter developers respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have terrific material, tons of subscribers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at much more clients.
So, I took place a quest to find out just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device truly understand newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of creator recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the best newsletter stack (that scales) frequently indicates using numerous various tools to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material creator, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great sign that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own web site and make use of the system as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also offers you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your internet site subscribers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Assistant Editor
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down into sections), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest simply going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward interface for composing.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your material just how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various sorts of material like video clips, web links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal a lot more content features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever single point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a fantastic posting system for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Below are several of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it super very easy to create and send e-mails. I pointed out above a few of the important things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Consider it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade 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 newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various choices– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to onward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of issues I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to ahead your e-mails to good friends and associates and if they get other individuals to sign up for your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear numerous e-newsletter companies give incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you another opportunity for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership earnings is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable depending on what your newsletter needs to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Assistant Editor.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for numerous users.
I’m unsure just how the device economics service this, however beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters for free.
Tidy and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However naturally, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I love Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow review if you would love to discover more.
Today, there actually is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my website a bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the page. It’s extremely noticeable 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 regular Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would just include added expenses that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is an excellent solution for any person seeking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review articles often. I just do when I actually use the tool myself and would recommend it to a buddy.
I wish you located some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.