Over 2 years back, I read one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly started tearing up Beehiiv Embed Form.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for composing newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to create and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that aid me assess metrics and get more clients.
I assume I’ve lastly found the appropriate device.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to design, write, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly go with it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for fairly a long time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved lastly launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter creators respect preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have excellent content, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a search to find out exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they develop a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really recognize newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of creator recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently indicates using multiple various tools to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that wants a system that allows them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material creator, you must seriously thinking about trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent sign that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
How to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Embed Form
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down into sections), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise just going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for composing.
Once you begin writing, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for different kinds of material like videos, web links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, 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 design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Below are some of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super very easy to write and send out e-mails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Think about it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or through embed forms.
If you already have a website, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a complete size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the group is servicing updates for these, but I discussed a few worries I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your list to onward your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I have actually appear numerous newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership revenue is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter has to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Embed Form.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for many individuals.
I’m uncertain exactly how the device economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly 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 start sending e-newsletters totally free.
Clean and contemporary client analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop premium choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen another newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to discover more.
Today, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s since they often tend to slow down my website a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow web link. But I can navigate that.
The primary 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 however that would certainly just include added expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any person seeking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review blog posts frequently. I only do when I actually use the tool myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.