Over two years back, I was reading among 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 instantly started destroying Beehiiv Survey Forms.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last 6 months trying out various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for creating newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to compose and send out emails, and provides me devices that help me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly located the right device.
However, 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 platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly choose it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly some time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter creators admire preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to find out just how these huge 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 even more customers? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool truly recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Since, any type of designer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) often indicates using numerous various tools to assist accomplish one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can get expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that desires a system that permits them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or content designer, you must seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that individuals love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Survey Forms
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine 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 simple to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
Once you start creating, you can optimize headings, include links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for different types of web content like videos, links, pictures, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is also constantly launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Simply check out the system totally free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any e-newsletter developer.
Here are several of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super simple to write and send e-mails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the much better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain to get rid of 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, individuals can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various alternatives– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, but I stated a few problems I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, 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 obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear lots of e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional avenue for growing your email list.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Membership earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the things I like regarding beehiiv is how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Survey Forms.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get started and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the device economics work on this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop premium choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my internet site structure platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Today, there really is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site aside from using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my internet site a bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a sluggish web link. But I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow form (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would simply include added costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually produce a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual seeking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs several that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather inexpensive for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose review messages typically. I just do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.