Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv Boosts.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months trying out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly easy to create and send emails, and provides me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I’ve ultimately located the appropriate tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, compose, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former employees at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally select it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it concerned ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter developers admire preferred newsletters with countless customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have fantastic web content, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to find out just how these large newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any maker understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently indicates using numerous different devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that enables them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or web content creator, you need to seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals like reading 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 fantastic platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site clients right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
How to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Boosts
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start creating,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sectors), Grow 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, Style is where you design your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various types of content like videos, links, images, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal extra content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, image formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever single point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a great deal. Simply try out the system free of cost and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any newsletter designer.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely very easy to compose and send out e-mails. I mentioned over several of the things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different choices– a complete width, a dealt with size, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, however I pointed out a couple of concerns 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 newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to onward your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they get other individuals to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter firms provide incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for expanding your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership profits is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be very profitable relying on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Boosts.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get started and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for lots of users.
I’m unsure just how the system business economics service this, but beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However certainly, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my website building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow review if you wish to find out more.
Today, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to slow down my web site a little bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow-moving web link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow kind (which I love making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just add additional costs that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages here. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a great solution for anyone seeking to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system much surpasses numerous that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review posts typically. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.