Over two years back, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv Start Trial.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter systems to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for creating newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it incredibly simple to write and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that help me evaluate metrics and get more clients.
I think I’ve finally found the ideal device.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. 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 easy to style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally select it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for quite a long time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure many e-newsletter creators appreciate popular newsletters with millions of clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have great material, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even extra customers.
So, I took place a quest to figure out just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they create a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Because, any kind of maker recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter pile (that scales) usually suggests utilizing numerous various tools to assist accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or web content maker, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific system made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own website already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Start Trial
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start writing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you create and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into sectors), Expand 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to write about, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly user interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your material how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for various sorts of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot a lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to go through ever before solitary point you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try the system for free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it an excellent posting system for any type of newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely very easy to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out over a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different options– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you want to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, yet I mentioned a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Start Trial.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to begin and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for many individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the system business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is certainly cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my web site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I like Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to discover more.
Today, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my website a little bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a sluggish net connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier however that would just add additional expenses that I do not need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually produce a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for any individual aiming to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far surpasses numerous 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 relatively cheap wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write review posts usually. I just do when I really utilize the tool myself and would suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.