Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favorite 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 on it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv or Substack.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and e-newsletter systems to help build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it extremely easy to write and send emails, and provides me devices that assist me assess metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I assume I have actually finally discovered the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to design, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately opt for it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it involved ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter makers look up to preferred e-newsletters with countless customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific material, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I went on a quest to determine how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this device really understand newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies making use of numerous various devices to help achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a system that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content maker, you must seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv or Substack
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and break them down into segments), Expand 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 newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for various sorts of web content like video clips, web links, pictures, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally frequently launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a lot much more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a terrific publishing system for any kind of newsletter maker.
Below are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly very easy to write and send e-mails. I discussed above some of things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various choices– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, but I mentioned a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to onward your e-mails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration earnings is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-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 really profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of things I like regarding beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv or Substack.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to start and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for lots of customers.
I’m not sure exactly how the system business economics service this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I like Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Now, there truly is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my website a little bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would just add extra costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons right here. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any person aiming to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unusual. 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 per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial articles frequently. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.