Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favorite 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 it and instantly began wrecking Beehiiv or Klaviyo.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for composing e-newsletters. But I could not find one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to create and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I have actually finally found the appropriate device.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to style, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for fairly some time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even more clients.
So, I went on a quest to figure out just how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device actually recognize e-newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Because, any designer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) commonly indicates using several different tools to help attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that permits them to send out customized newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get started and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and use the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own website already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow individuals to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv or Klaviyo
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand name design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have access 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 make your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to write about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your web content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for various kinds of web content like videos, links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is also frequently launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot much more material features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo styles, and extra. I’m not going to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a terrific posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter developer.
Here are a few of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly easy to write and send emails. I stated above several of the things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a site. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a site. However, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a personalized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or with embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various alternatives– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I pointed out a few worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your listing to forward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other people to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear many newsletter firms offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you another avenue for expanding your email list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Beehiiv or Klaviyo.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get started and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for numerous users.
I’m unsure how the unit economics service this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to discover more.
Right now, there really is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a slow internet link. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would just include extra prices that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for any individual wanting to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation articles typically. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.