Over 2 years back, I was reading among my preferred 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 started destroying Beehiiv Recommendation Network.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m often getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last six months trying out various e-mail and newsletter systems to aid develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific options for creating newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter designs, makes it very very easy to write and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that assist me examine metrics and obtain even more customers.
I believe I’ve lastly located the right tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, create, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter designers look up to popular e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have fantastic content, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to determine how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right newsletter stack (that scales) typically indicates making use of multiple various tools to aid attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that allows them to send personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content developer, you must seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Just how to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Recommendation Network
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have described info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to discuss, I recommend simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your content how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various types of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal more content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, photo styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary point you can enhance with your email template because it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely easy to create and send out emails. I pointed out above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly among the much better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or with embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to ahead your e-mails to good friends and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your list, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you one more method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership revenue is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be very profitable depending on what your e-newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is exactly 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 Recommendation Network.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get going and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for many users.
I’m unsure how the system business economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop premium choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my site building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Today, there actually is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my website a little bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would just include extra expenses that I do not need. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the cons below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a great service for anyone seeking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose review articles typically. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.