Over two years earlier, I read one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and quickly began destroying Beehiiv Notion.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months trying out different e-mail and newsletter platforms to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent options for composing e-newsletters. But I could not find one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me totally customize my newsletter styles, makes it extremely simple to write and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that help me evaluate metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I have actually finally located the best device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles 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 enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally opt for it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for fairly time now. I have actually put things off hard when it involved ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter developers look up to prominent newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have great web content, tons of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even much more customers.
So, I took place a quest to figure out just how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly comprehend newsletter development and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any creator recognizes, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently suggests utilizing several different tools to help attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin making use of, 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 platform that enables them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material developer, you ought to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for 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 clients, provide you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Notion
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all 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 accessibility 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 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 all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you want to cover, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and easy to use user interface for writing.
Once you start writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various sorts of web content like video clips, web links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a lot much more material features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Simply check out the system absolutely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a wonderful posting system for any type of newsletter designer.
Right here are some of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it very very easy to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out over some of things you can do with your settings and email style 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-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive a web site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or with embed kinds.
If you currently have a site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man 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 directly utilize the slim installed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to forward your e-mails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear numerous newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional method for growing your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Premium registrations
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership income is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love regarding 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 client matter Beehiiv Notion.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get going and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for lots of individuals.
I’m not sure just how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while making use of 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 e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my internet site structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive information why I love Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Today, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my internet site a bit. Whenever 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 extremely visible when you get on a slow-moving web link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow kind (which I love using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include added expenses that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far exceeds numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose review articles usually. I just do when I really utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I hope you located some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.