Over two years back, I read one of my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantly began destroying Beehiiv Impressions.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter systems to help build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for creating newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super easy to create and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I’ve ultimately located the best tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal 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 very easy to style, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the popular newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly go with it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it involved lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter creators admire prominent newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have terrific content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at extra clients.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device truly comprehend newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker development.
Since, any maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) usually indicates using multiple different tools to help achieve one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things 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 content maker that wants a system that allows them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or content designer, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Impressions
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin writing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sectors), 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 ads, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I suggest just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
When you start writing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and style your content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various sorts of material like videos, web links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, switch 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 edit background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just check out the system totally free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it an excellent publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very simple to compose and send emails. I discussed over some of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Think of it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed types.
If you already have a web site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can locate 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 ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is dealing with updates for these, yet I discussed a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your listing to onward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem lots of newsletter business offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find 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 subscribers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of the things I like about beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Beehiiv Impressions.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and modern client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create premium options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But of course, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to discover more.
Right now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my web site a little bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a sluggish web connection. But I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply add extra costs that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m also confident that Webflow will ultimately create a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a great remedy for any person seeking to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform much exceeds lots of that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unusual. 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 don’t create review blog posts commonly. I only do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would recommend it to a friend.
I wish you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.