Over two years back, I was reading among my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and promptly started destroying Beehiiv Email Sequence.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for composing newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to write and send emails, and gives me tools that assist me examine metrics and get more customers.
I think I’ve ultimately found the ideal tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to style, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly go with it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for quite a long time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned finally launching my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter creators appreciate popular newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have fantastic material, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even extra clients.
So, I took place a hunt to determine just how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool really recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Since, any type of designer recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) often implies using numerous various devices to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to establish referrals. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a system that enables them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or content maker, you ought to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and use the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also offers you a website comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The first 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 allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Email Sequence
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start creating,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you want to blog about, I suggest simply going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various sorts of material like videos, links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal a lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform completely free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Below are a few of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send e-mails. I mentioned above several of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think about it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you already have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different options– a full size, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, but I stated a couple of problems 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 e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to pals and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter firms give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration earnings is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be very lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Email Sequence.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to start and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. 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 removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for many users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the system economics work on this, however beehiiv is absolutely less costly (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to find out more.
Right now, there really is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like using iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my internet site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you get on a slow-moving web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I love using). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add additional prices that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point produce a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a great option for anybody aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively affordable of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial articles often. I only do when I in fact make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.