Over 2 years ago, I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously began wrecking Beehiiv For Web 3.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months checking out various email and newsletter systems to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for creating e-newsletters. However I could not find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter designs, makes it very simple to write and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that help me analyze metrics and get more clients.
I believe I have actually ultimately located the right tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers 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 clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately opt for it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for quite a long time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter designers look up to popular newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have excellent web content, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get back at much more customers.
So, I took place a search to identify how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly understand newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Because, any kind of designer recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) usually suggests making use of multiple different devices to help achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a system that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or web content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent sign that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv For Web 3
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you create and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and break them down into sections), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and straightforward user interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for different sorts of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also frequently releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal much more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever single point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the system absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any type of newsletter developer.
Right here are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it super very easy to write and send out e-mails. I pointed out above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a website. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, offer you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or with embed types.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, however I discussed a few worries I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your emails to good friends and associates and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be very lucrative depending upon what your newsletter has to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv For Web 3.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the device business economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I use Webflow as my internet site structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I like Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow review if you ‘d like to learn more.
Right now, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really visible when you’re on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply add additional costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful service for anybody aiming to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system much exceeds several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation articles typically. I only do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.