Over two years ago, I read one of my favorite e-mail 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 immediately started tearing up Beehiiv Discover Experts.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m often getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to aid develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for writing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly simple to create and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that help me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I’ve ultimately found the right tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best 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 simple to design, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern newsletter system for quite a long time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter designers admire popular newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have terrific material, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get even more subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just 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 produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really recognize e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter pile (that scales) frequently indicates making use of multiple various tools to assist accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a system that permits them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content maker, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a good sign that people like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system utilized by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Just how to start utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Discover Experts
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed information on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you develop and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have access 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to discuss, I recommend just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
When you start writing, you can optimize headings, add web links, and style your content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various sorts of material like videos, links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal much more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your email template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Just try out the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a terrific posting platform for any newsletter creator.
Here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send emails. I stated over some of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a website. Think about it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a personalized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different options– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, but I stated a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to ahead your emails to good friends and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem numerous newsletter firms give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you another method for growing your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription profits is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Discover Experts.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to get started and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for numerous users.
I’m unsure just how the device business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is definitely less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I use Webflow as my web site structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow review if you want to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like using iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my website a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow kind (which I like using). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add extra expenses that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent option for anybody seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial posts usually. I just do when I really utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a good friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.