Over 2 years ago, I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up Beehiiv Podcast.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last six months checking out various email and e-newsletter systems to help build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent alternatives for creating newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to compose and send e-mails, and gives me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I believe I have actually ultimately located the best device.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to design, write, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the renowned newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly select it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure lots of e-newsletter designers look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have fantastic material, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even much more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to identify exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they develop a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any developer knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly means making use of several various devices to help accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that wants a platform that allows them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or content creator, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indication that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own website currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site clients straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize different marketing networks to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Podcast
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 advertisements, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I advise simply going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you start composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for various sorts of web content like video clips, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot extra material features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, photo formats, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever before single point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a wonderful publishing platform for any type of newsletter creator.
Below are several of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super easy to write and send emails. I discussed over some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design 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 most definitely among the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Think of it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and want people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a complete width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, but I discussed a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to forward your emails to buddies and associates and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem numerous newsletter firms 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 another method for expanding your email listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Podcast.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to start and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not sure exactly how the device economics work with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site structure system 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 review if you want to discover more.
Right now, there actually is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my internet site a bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s extremely obvious when you’re on a sluggish web link. Yet I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow form (which I like using). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier however that would simply include additional expenses that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a great option for anybody seeking to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses many that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively economical wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation articles typically. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.