Over two years earlier, I read among my preferred 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 it and instantaneously started destroying Beehiiv Inform Stakeholders.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I spent the last six months trying out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for creating newsletters. However I could not find one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly easy to create and send out emails, and provides me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I’ve finally discovered the right tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. 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 very easy to layout, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former employees at the well-known e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it involved ultimately introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter designers respect preferred newsletters with numerous clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly understand newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Since, any kind of developer understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter stack (that ranges) typically means making use of numerous various devices to help attain one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, 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 material maker that desires a platform that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-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 company, startup, or material developer, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic platform utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed forms, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Inform Stakeholders
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sections), Grow 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I recommend just going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and easy to use user interface for creating.
As soon as you start composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal more material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, fonts, image formats, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a wonderful posting platform for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Below are a few of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely simple to write and send out e-mails. I stated above several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a web site. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, offer you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom-made domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different choices– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a few worries I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to ahead your emails to pals and coworkers and if they get other individuals to register for your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem lots of newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this post.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership profits is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I love regarding beehiiv is how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Beehiiv Inform Stakeholders.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to get started and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and access to costs memberships. 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 getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters for free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I use Webflow as my website building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to find out more.
Right now, there truly is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my internet site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving internet link. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not use a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add added costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will at some point produce a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any individual seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform much exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather economical wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create review messages commonly. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.