Over 2 years earlier, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously began tearing up Beehiiv Gravity Forms.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent developer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different email and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic choices for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very simple to create and send e-mails, and offers me tools that aid me assess metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I think I’ve ultimately found the right device.
But, I know beehiiv may 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 system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to style, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately go with it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure lots of e-newsletter developers respect popular newsletters with numerous clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have wonderful material, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get back at extra customers.
So, I took place a quest to find out how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they develop a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device truly understand e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly suggests making use of several different devices to assist attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was 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 designer that desires a platform that allows them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material creator, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people love reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own internet site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, external embed types, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Gravity Forms
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning composing 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), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you want to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you start creating, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various types of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time clients, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image layouts, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a great publishing system for any type of newsletter developer.
Here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly simple to compose and send out emails. I mentioned over a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some added reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a website. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different choices– a complete size, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is dealing with updates for these, but I mentioned a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your list to ahead your emails to pals and colleagues and if they get other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually seem lots of newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you another method for expanding your email list.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration profits is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” issues of your newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Beehiiv Gravity Forms.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to begin and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for numerous customers.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the unit business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Here are some of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my website building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I love Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you want to learn more.
Now, there truly is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t like utilizing iframe’s since they tend to decrease my website a little bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you get on a slow-moving web connection. However I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow form (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include extra costs that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a great option for anyone wanting to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far surpasses many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial posts frequently. I only do when I really use the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.