Over two years ago, I was reading one of 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 on it and instantly started tearing up Beehiiv Cup of Coffee.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m commonly obtaining pitched various devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific options for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super simple to compose and send e-mails, and offers me tools that aid me examine metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I have actually finally found the right tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might 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 platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern-day newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it involved lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter developers respect prominent e-newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have great web content, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to identify how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer knows, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that scales) often implies utilizing numerous various devices to aid accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was totally free to start making use of, 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 system that permits them to send out personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or web content maker, you ought to seriously thinking about trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good indicator that people love reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow individuals to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Cup of Coffee
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “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 website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have described information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down into sections), 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for different kinds of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image formats, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a wonderful posting system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Here are several of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly easy to compose and send out e-mails. I mentioned over several of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a web site. However, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed types.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various options– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, but I discussed a few problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to onward your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I’ve appear many newsletter companies give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership profits is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really profitable depending on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv Cup of Coffee.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to start and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain how the unit economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create costs alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to learn more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my site a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would just include additional prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point produce a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much surpasses numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review articles commonly. I just do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.