Over two years ago, I read among my preferred 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 quickly started wrecking Beehiiv Milk Road.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different email and newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to compose and send out emails, and offers me devices that assist me examine metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I have actually ultimately found the appropriate tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, write, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally select it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for quite a long time now. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter creators look up to prominent newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have excellent web content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that enables them to get even extra customers.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device truly understand newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any type of maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the right newsletter stack (that scales) usually suggests making use of numerous various devices to assist attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a platform that enables them to send customized newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content maker, you must seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indicator that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your own web site already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Milk Road
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you create and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down right 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, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you want to cover, I advise simply going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly user interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can optimize headings, include links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like video clips, links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal extra material features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system free of charge and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any newsletter designer.
Right here are some of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly easy to compose and send out emails. I discussed over a few of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a website. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have 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 column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different options– a complete size, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, yet I stated a few problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your checklist to forward your e-mails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem numerous newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs memberships
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Milk Road.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get started and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, 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 enhancement of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for lots of users.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However of course, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my internet site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to find out more.
Now, there truly is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s since they tend to decrease my internet site a bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very visible when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just include additional expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for any individual looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform far exceeds numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review posts typically. I only do when I really make use of the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.