Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and promptly began destroying Beehiiv Embed Audio.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent creator is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched various devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months checking out different email and newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful alternatives for writing newsletters. Yet I could not locate one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send out emails, and offers me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I think I’ve lastly located the ideal tool.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to design, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for fairly time now. I have actually put things off hard when it involved lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have great content, tons of customers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to identify exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly recognize e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the best e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently indicates using multiple various devices to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to establish references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a platform that permits them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or web content developer, you should seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a web site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Embed Audio
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sections), Expand 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you design 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.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to cover, I advise simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different sorts of content like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot much more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, image formats, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single point you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any type of newsletter maker.
Below are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly very easy to create and send out e-mails. I discussed over a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where people can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different alternatives– a complete size, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few worries I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to forward your emails to pals and colleagues and if they get other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem numerous newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you another avenue for growing your email listing.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration revenue is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I love about 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 matter Beehiiv Embed Audio.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to start and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of individuals.
I’m not sure how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce premium options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
But certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom font styles.
I use Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I love Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to discover more.
Now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish net connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would just add additional prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point develop a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific option for anybody looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers 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 each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation messages usually. I only do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.